And that is why it comes as no surprise that the Green Team dismantled the Magic on the fabled parquet floor last night. On a night when pundits and poets speculated about an epic fold and exposure of old bones, the Celtics throttled Orlando, 96-84, in Game 6 to advance to the NBA Finals for the 21st time since 1957. The Celtics are 17-3 in the championship round and will play either the Los Angeles Lakers or the Phoenix Suns (LA leads, 3-2, going into tonight’s game), beginning Thursday night at the home of the Western Conference winner.
Former Celtic and NBA MVP Dave Cowens, who would have fit in nicely with this crew, was on hand to present the conference championship trophy to owner Wyc Grousbeck. Cowens urged the Celtics to “go out there on behalf of the NBA and Red Auerbach and all Celtics present and past and bring home No. 18.’’
Explaining why he never lost faith in a team that went 27-27 over its final 54 regular-season games, Celtics coach Doc Rivers said, “This starting five has never lost a series. Ever . . . This is where we thought we’d be. Don’t be surprised. We did go through tough times, but we kept saying, as a staff, ‘It’s in us.’ ’’
Like most of his players, Rivers is throwing nothing but sevens and 11s at this hour. How else do we explain Nate Robinson? The diminutive three-time slam dunk champ came to Boston from the Knicks in February and managed to play himself to the deep end of the bench. Robinson was not part of Rivers’s playoff rotation, but still Doc predicted that the little guy would be a factor in at least one game.
Nobody believed Rivers. Doc probably didn’t even believe himself. More likely, the coach was just being nice.
But it happened. After Rajon Rondo was splattered on the floor late in the first quarter (by Dwight Howard, of course), Robinson came off the bench to score an astounding 13 points in the second quarter as the Celtics bolted to a 21-point lead. This was the same Nate Robinson who scored a grand total of 6 points, playing a total of 16 minutes, in the first five games of the series.
“Nate Robinson stayed focused in 30 straight games without playing,’’ noted Rivers.
