The crowd even brought back memories of Ye Olden Days with a hearty “Beat LA!’’ chant or two. And for a nice extra flourish, they even played five extra minutes before the visitors squeaked out an 88-87 triumph.
Don’t get me wrong. As Doc Rivers pointed out before the game, in this frantic, shortened NBA season, every win is very important. But Rivers has been around too long, and has seen too much quality basketball, to give his personal seal of approval to the goings-on at TD Garden last evening.
“I thought our execution all night was terrible,’’ he said. “It was an awful game, and they won. If we had won, it would have been an awful game we won.’’
To be fair, he did lose, and it should probably come as no surprise that Lakers coach Mike Brown saw the game in a somewhat more positive light. “I’d have to think about it, but it definitely is a very good win for us on the road,’’ he said. “I thought we were shorthanded in Utah [Jan. 11] and our guys somehow found a way to win in overtime. This win is a very good win for us on the road, especially with the way Boston has been playing, and not losing our composure and getting it done in overtime.’’
The game hardly ended in high drama, given that the winning basket was an Andrew Bynum tip-in of a Kobe Bryant miss with 1:29 remaining. There were subsequent misses on both sides before the Celtics got the ball back with 6.1 seconds left in OT. Paul Pierce got off a shot from the right, which Ray Allen was able to rebound and put back, but Pau Gasol, a menace from start to finish, got a legal hand on it, and that was that.
This box score ought to be preserved for historical purposes.
You won’t see too many modern NBA games in which the winning team goes 1 for 15 on threes. You won’t see too many modern NBA games with just 22 turnovers, combined (more on that later). You won’t see too many modern NBA games in which one team’s substitute attempts more free throws than the other team does, or many NBA games in which a team is out-free throw attempted, 20-5, especially when the 20 belongs to the visiting team and the 5 belongs to the home team.
So in that sense, the game was oddly interesting.
