3.25.2019

Ticket Cashes In

June 17, 2008

Ticket Cashes In

The bully had hounded Kevin Garnett since he entered the league as a high schooler back in 1995. The bully never let Garnett sniff a championship. Whenever Garnett got close, the bully slammed him in the jaw and left him whimpering. He'd have to wait another year.

But now?

``I knocked the bully's (butt) out,'' Garnett said last night. ``I knocked his (butt) clean out.''



Few players are more emotional than Garnett on a normal day, but last night he was in a different stratosphere. After Garnett's Celtics annihilated the Lakers 131-92 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals to claim the franchise's 17th title and Garnett's first, he was completely overcome.

He collapsed on the Celtics logo at center court and embraced the leprechaun. He couldn't conduct his postgame interview with ABC, pulling a Celtics hat low over his eyes as the tears flowed. He eventually hugged Celts legend Bill Russell.

And when it came time to explain exactly what he was feeling to the assembled media, Garnett still needed to compose himself.

``Man, man, man,'' he said, soaked in champagne and clutching a gold basketball inscribed with the championship trophy logo.

He paused to look heavenward.

``Thank you all for being patient.''

He then launched into an eloquent metaphor to describe how it felt to finally be a champion.

``You ever go to school and you have that bully mess with you every day?'' he said. ``You know when you get out of your mom or dad's car that you're going to have to see him as soon as you walk through the door and he's going to be sitting there with his feet up waiting to pat your pockets.

``Then one day you say to yourself, `It's going to stop tonight.' You walk through there and as soon as he pats your pocket you lay his (butt) out. You see the expression on his face and you're sort of kind of shook because you know what, you just knocked the bully out and you don't know how he's going to come back.

``So the next morning you come in and he's not there, and it's like a sigh of relief.''

Garnett played the role of tough guy last night. Coming off a disappointing Game 5 performance he characterized as ``trash'' - he missed three free throws down the stretch - Garnett came out like a man possessed.

The forward scored 17 of his game-high 26 points in the first half on 8-of-10 shooting. He added 14 rebounds and four assists.

Garnett also scored what may go down as the signature basket of the series when he took a pass in the lane from Paul Pierce, hung in the air over Lamar Odom and banked home a floater before landing on his back and thrusting a fist to the sky.

The converted three-point play made it 58-35 in the C's favor heading into halftime. Game over. Bully vanquished.

``I just want to say, other than my kid being born, this is the happiest day of my life right now,'' Garnett said. ``I don't plan to sleep for weeks or months. If you're looking for me, my personal number is about to change. Man, man, man.''



Pierce at the Pinnacle

He shot and he passed, he handled the ball, he played defense. Along the way, Paul Pierce opened the eyes of an entire nation at a time when the spotlight seemingly was reserved for someone else.

The renaissance Celtics won the 17th championship in franchise history last night with a resounding 131-92 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, an inevitable affair that completed the greatest turnaround in NBA history.

What it did, too, was make Pierce exactly what the Celtics have long said he was, a brilliant player whose talent has never truly been appreciated. Or, for that matter, realized.

Please step aside, Mr. Kobe Bryant. You might have been the best player in the NBA this season, but you weren't the best in these NBA Finals. You really weren't even close. That distinction belongs to Pierce, whose entire performance through these playoffs ended with him being named the Finals MVP for an array of reasons, ranging from the statistical to the intangible.

With each passing game, you could almost hear what the rest of the basketball world was thinking.

WE KNEW HE WAS GOOD. wE JUST DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS THIS GOOD

Before we get to the obvious contributions and sacrifices Pierce has made during his 10-year career with the Celtics, let's focus on Game 6. Pierce missed his first five shots and went 2-for-9 for the first half. He still finished with 10 points and nine assists on the way to 17 points and 10 assists in the game.

Making essentially the same decision he made in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals against Cleveland, C's coach Doc Rivers put the ball in Pierce's hands and ran the offense through his captain.

This comes after a Game 5 in which Pierce scored 38 points because, quite simply, the Celtics needed him to. In Game 4, there was the block of Bryant and the improbable comeback. Pierce had 28 points in Game 2 and 22 in Game 1, the latter forever etched in Celtics archives in what may someday be known as The Wheelchair Game.

Prior to that, there was Game 6 against Detroit and Game 7 against Cleveland, the day Pierce went shot-for-shot with the inimitable LeBron James to score 41 points.

``That was really good for him,'' Rivers said after the Cleveland game. ``I've been proud of him all year because he's the guy that had two new teammates and had to give up some of his game, and he did that. And then, when push came to shove, he had to turn back into the Paul I had for the first three years. I'm proud of him.''

Said Celtics vice president of basketball operations Danny Ainge, ``I was happy for Paul as much as anybody. He's had his ups and downs, and he really hasn't had any of the opportunities to build on his legacy. I've always thought that Paul was one of the top handful of players in Celtics history, and these are the kinds of games he can build on that legacy. And they're the kinds of games he lives for.''

Today, with the NBA record 17th title, let there be no doubt: As much as Kevin Garnett made these Celtics go during the regular season, Pierce ignited them during the playoffs. A few days ago, after the unforgettable Game 4, Ray Allen looked like a reasonable bet to be Finals MVP. Then came Games 5 and 6, a Celtics loss and a Celtics victory, performances during which Pierce effortlessly morphed from a scorer to a playmaker.

In retrospect, what games better demonstrated what Pierce has meant to the Celtics, this year and before? Pierce single-handedly kept the Celtics in Game 5. In Game 6, when he got some help, the Celtics blew the Lakers off the floor. Pierce gave the ball up, willingly, and he did not step off the floor for the first time until there was a mere 2:31 to play in the third quarter, by which point the Celtics had a 30-point lead.

Last summer, long before this season began, the Celtics had a choice. They could trade Pierce or they could keep him. They could build around a man who always seemed to keep the Celtics close into the fourth quarter, or they could go with young guys who could never seem to finish the job. The Celtics chose the former.

This time, this year, Pierce made sure they finished.

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