Celtics Survive Furious Laker Rally in Fourth

By Scott Tribble
Celtics.com Correspondent
June 9, 2008

Kobe Bryant described the tone in the Lakers' huddle as "Eddie Murphy's Raw, times ten." With the Celtics nearly squandering a twenty-point lead in the final six minutes, Game 2 of the NBA Finals could have ended up as equally unsuitable for the children of Boston.

Over the course of the fourth quarter, with Bryant egging his teammates on, the Lakers slowly chipped away at the Celtics' sizable advantage, reducing it to single digits by the two-minute mark. The lead dropped to four with a minute remaining, but the Celtics had possession and time to draw up their next play. The best laid plans fell through, however, as Rajon Rondo subsequently launched an off-target jumper with the shot clock winding down. Bryant collected the rebound, and, drawing a foul from Paul Pierce on the other end, cut the lead to 104-102. Pierce then put the Celtics back up by four with two clutch freebies of his own.

With fifteen seconds remaining, the Lakers bypassed Bryant altogether and looked for Sasha Vujacic beyond the arc. Pierce got a hand on the latter's shot, and James Posey corralled the deflection. Posey hit two free throws, and the Green Team escaped with a 108-102 victory as well as a 2-0 series advantage.

"You just keep playing. You don't know what's going to happen," Bryant said after the game. "Mathematically we felt like if we cut it down to about 10 the goal was to cut it down to 10 with about seven minutes to go. We weren't table to do that, so after that it was about slicing it and getting it to single digits and applying more and more pressure. That's what we did, and I think they learned a lot tonight because we're a young team and I think that shows you're never really out of a game."

As well as the Lakers played in the final minutes, the Celtics very clearly lost the focus and energy that characterized their earlier play.

"I thought we got cute when we got the lead," said Celtics' Coach Doc Rivers. "We started trying to make sensational plays instead of keeping it simple, and when you play a team like that, that has the arsenal, they made a lot of shots."

Though they were painful ones, Pierce said after the game that there were lessons to be learned from the experience.

"I was a little disappointed in our play in the last six minutes of the game. I thought we just weren't aggressive enough to put the game away. I thought we wanted the time to just run out, and we were myself, I was a little lackadaisical with the ball. It's a great win, but definitely a lesson to be learned in that last six minutes. But just down the stretch, we've got to be a little more aggressive."

The Lakers now face a 2-0 deficit, as the series shifts to Los Angeles. Asked after the game whether his team might carry the Game 2 comeback into the next contest, Lakers' Coach Phil Jackson responded with sarcasm, if not a little gallows humor.

"No, no. It's 2,500 miles away. It's too far to carry it."