You could hear the collision, the thud as Fisher hit the floor, and the bounce of the ball on the hardwood after the layup dropped through the basket.
He took the hard foul and converted the 3-point play to give the Lakers an 87-80 lead. They would hold on to win Game 3, 91-84, taking a two-games-to-one lead in the NBA Finals.
Bryant cobbled together a game-high 29 points, outdueling Garnett, who turned out to be the Celtics’ primary scoring op tion after struggling the first two games of the series.
He put up his best line since Boston’s second-round series against Cleveland, going for 25 points on 11-of-16 shooting, and with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen each dealing with their own nightmare nights, Celtics coach Doc Rivers wished his team would have gone to Garnett more.
“KG was great,’’ Rivers said. “Didn’t get it enough. We talked about 20 shots before the game. He shot 16, should have had 25 as far as I was concerned. I thought there were a lot of times we still should have gotten the ball to him. I didn’t think we had a lot of great ball movement tonight. I thought, again, it was a half-court game because of the way they were playing.
“One of the things I told our team was, Game 2, Ray had it. We did a great job of getting it to Ray. Game 3, Kevin had it. I didn’t think we did as good of a job getting it to Kevin.’’
Allen looked like a man who had shot himself out after exploding for 32 points in the Boston’s Game 2 win at Staples Center. After torching the Lakers for a Finals record eight 3-pointers, Allen shot blanks last night, going 0 for 13 from the floor, 0 for 8 from long distance.
“It’s a hell of a swing, I’ll tell you that,’’ Rivers said. “You know, it’s basketball. That’s why you can’t worry about it. He’ll be back in the gym tomorrow and getting ready for the next game. I thought he was pressing early on some of them, and honestly, I thought all of his shots looked flat tonight. I didn’t think he had any legs. I don’t know if the knee and the thigh had anything to do with it, but I just thought he was short on most of his jump shots.’’
