Bring on the Lakers

Long Time Coming for KG

June 1, 2008

BRING ON THE LAKERS!

Kevin Garnett looked dazed, and admitted as much.

Seated next to Paul Pierce on the postgame podium, each with an Eastern Conference champions hat cocked at different angles, Garnett shook his head slowly and tried to explain the sensation.



But that was difficult. The Celtics had just taken down an exceedingly tough and experienced Detroit team in six games - and closed it out on the ROAD no less - and Garnett looked like he had just learned of the result from a news report while dozing off on his living room couch.

Such is the initial shock of dreams realized.

``Right now it's a good feeling,'' he said. ``It probably hasn't even hit me yet because we haven't slept in about four days, going on five days now. Going to the Finals, I'm just hoping to get some sleep. But it does feel good.''

Garnett wasn't lying, his eyes bleary with exhaustion.

The usual Garnett excitement - akin to the jumpy energy of a little kid - was entirely absent.

He wasn't alone in feeling somewhat numb. But it's hard to think of a great player who has waited longer or agonized more for the chance to win a ring.

Pistons coach Flip Saunders, who coached Garnett when the Timberwolves lost to the Lakers in the 2004 Western Conference finals, saw his own late-round misery continue.

Detroit's elimination by the Celtics marked the fourth time - and the third straight - that he has coached a team within one series of the NBA Finals.

Now there is talk in Detroit that Saunders is on his way out.

But regardless of his own fate, Saunders is happy for his former star - the high school prodigy he watched come into the league in 1995.

``Well, he's one of those players,'' Saunders said. ``I always said that he was a great player who just happened to never have a ring.

``I remember that getting to the Finals is all he's ever talked about. But I'm sure he's not satisfied with that, that he wants to win a championship, too, to kind of solidify who he is and what type of player he is.

``I wish him luck, and he'll go out and compete.''

Once he gets some rest, anyway.

Doc Rivers gave the team yesterday and today off, and there's a good chance Garnett will sleep it all away.

A 20-game postseason run is just about right for a team that plays in the Finals. But the Celtics have averaged 6.7 games per series.

That's known as a haul.

But there has been a longer haul, too, dating back to what had to be one of the oddest sights of the local tourist season - Doc Rivers with Garnett, Pierce and Ray Allen on a Duck Boat last summer.

``Doc took us on a Duck Tour, and he said that he knows that we can score points - that's pretty much what it is,'' Garnett said. ``But he said we've got to be defensive, and the more and more we worked on it, the more and more we fell in love with it.

``There's days when we want to wring (assistant coach) Tom Thibodeau's neck, but he keeps us intact, and the more and more we saw the results, the more and more I think we fell in love with it,'' he said of the C's defensive system. ``It's our backbone now. We look at ourselves night in and night out, and we know we can score points.

``We've got to move the ball and execute and that type of thing. But (the defense is) our backbone. We have to play defense and we have to be connected. All five guys.''

Regular season included, they have now been connected for 102 games.

And after a weekend of solid sleep, chances are Garnett will be ready to extend that epic chain.