There are coaches at every level across the country today wearing a smile as big as Boston’s Game 6 blowout victory that clinched the Celtics’ 17th NBA title, their first since 1986, their first with the new triumvirate of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.
Yeah, you need points to win.
But defending is the way to the championship.
“You can score a 3-pointer, you can drive to the hole and dunk, you can make a free throw and you can make a great pass,” Allen said after the Celtics’ historic 131-92 Game 6 victory Tuesday night.
“Any time any one of us did any of those things, it really did matter because everybody on this team expected us to do that. But when somebody dove on the ground for a loose ball, when somebody got a blocked shot, when somebody boxed out and we got a rebound and we ran, those were the things that made this team better.”
And those were the things that turned the Lakers to mush. The Celtics all rotated, always helped, always played passing lanes. Whatever the heck it was the Lakers tried to do failed miserably almost every time.
Game 6 saw 18 Celtic steals. Here just a little capsule of virtually any span: Lakers bring the ball up. Lakers try an entry pass. Celtics steal. Celtics score (a 3, a 2, whatever). Back to the start. Lakers bring the ball up …
In their first three series victories over Denver, Utah and San Antonio, the Lakers averaged 105.9 points, shot .478. Against Boston, L.A. averaged 93.8 points, shot .441.
“I think if we’re going to learn anything from this series,” said Kobe Bryant, who might have been asking for a trade before halftime, “we can’t expect to win a championship by focusing on the offensive end.
“We have to be able to hold people down, as well. We’re pretty good at it, but I think we can be much better.”
As good as the Celtics? Doubtful. This was Boston’s mission from Day 1. Garnett, Pierce, the Finals MVP, and Allen together could score on anyone, but the message was simple: Stop the other guys.
“This is what it is, this is what we talked about. It’s one thing to talk about it, another thing to go out and do it, and we did it,” said Pierce, who averaged 21.8 points and 6.3 assists in the Finals to take a place among the Celtic legends.
“It’s so gratifying. … We put in hard work all the way from September … the guys dropping their egos for the good of the team, sacrificing so much.
“You look at Kevin, myself and Ray, we sacrificed so much of what we did throughout our careers to get to this point.”
That’s the type of stuff that plants a smile on any coach’s mug.
“Doc let us know that the three of us were going to have to sacrifice,” Garnett said of the early message from coach Doc Rivers. “Defense is our backbone.”
Said Rivers, “We talked about it … that it was going to be our defense that was going to win the world championship for us or be our defense that would lose one.”
And that wasn’t just talk.
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One of Boston’s original Big Three, Larry Bird, weighed in yesterday: “I’m happy for the Celtics and the city of Boston. I know what it means to win a championship as a Celtic and the place championships hold in the history of the franchise.
“I’m also pleased for Danny Ainge, Doc Rivers and his staff, knowing where they were last year and then making the decisions to put them in position to win the team’s 17th title.”