Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Quote and link the news

I`m sorry to be late.
Recently, NBA final is end. I introduce what happens in the games and result.





BOSTON (AP) -- A blizzard of green-and-white confetti was in the forecast,
a
shiny trophy was being readied for its trip to the center of the parquet floor
and T-shirts and caps were hurriedly handed out to the rest of the new NBA
champions.
First, though, a final, fitting bow.
OAS_AD('TopRight');
The clock said 4:01 left, and the scoreboard read: Boston 116,
Los Angeles 81.
It was time for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to
come out -- together.
"I thought, they came in as a group, and I thought
we
should take them out as a group," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said.
The
Big
Three walked off as one, and into history.
With Bill Russell and
John
Havlicek
sitting courtside,
and Red Auerbach
surely lighting up a victory cigar
somewhere, these Celtics returned to
glory like the great Boston teams before
them, dominating the Los Angeles
Lakers
131-92
in Game 6 on Tuesday night.
For Pierce, Garnett and Allen,
this was moment they had
waited for, the one they used to wonder would ever
arrive. But they
sacrificed individual acclaim for team success, and with Rivers
as their
guide, the trio brought Boston back to the top with title No. 17.
"I'll be
forever linked to this city," said Garnett, who toiled for years in
Minnesota. "And
I'm more than grateful for that."
Almost an hour afterward,
Pierce, the
finals MVP who a year ago thought his days in Boston were over,
strolled
back onto the court.
"I didn't want a championship," he yelled to
no one
in particular. "I needed a championship. I ain't going nowhere. I'm
spending
the night."
In the closing minutes, Boston fans sang as if they
were in
a nearby pub, celebrating the first NBA championship won in the city
since
1986. They serenaded the newest champs with "Seven-teen" and taunted Kobe
Bryant and his Lakers, who were buried by a green-and-white
avalanche.
Garnett scored 26 points with 14 rebounds, Allen
scored 26 and Pierce, who
shook off a sprained right knee sustained in Game
1, added 17 for the Celtics, a
24-win team a year ago. Rajon Rondo had 21 points,
eight assists, seven rebounds
and six steals.
Boston built a 23-point
halftime lead and obliterated the
Lakers, who were trying to become the first team to
overcome a 3-1 deficit in
the finals. The 39-point win surpassed the NBA
record for the biggest margin of
victory in a championship clincher; the
Celtics beat the Lakers 129-96 in Game 5
of the 1965 NBA finals.
As the clock ticked down, Pierce doused Rivers with
red Gatorade. Owner Wyc Grousbeck, who named his
group Banner 17 to leave no
doubt about his goal, put an unlit cigar in his
mouth -- a tribute to Auerbach,
the patriarch who had a hand in the
franchise's first 16 titles.
Garnett
dropped to the parquet and kissed the
leprechaun at center court and then found
Russell, the Hall of Famer who taught him the
Celtic way, for a long embrace.
"You know you're a Celtic when other players
come up and congratulate you to
be here," said Garnett, the centerpiece
of a 7-for-1 trade pulled off last
summer by Boston general manager Danny Ainge, a former
Celtics guard. "They
explain the tradition. It's like coming into a frat."
It was Boston's first
title since the passing of Auerbach, and following
the game TD Banknorth Garden,
the "new" Garden, smelled of
one of his stogies. He must have been smiling as
the Celtics denied Lakers coach Phil Jackson
from overtaking him with a 10th
championship.
The Boston-Los Angeles
rivalry, nothing more than
black-and-white footage from the 60s and TV
highlights of players wearing short
shorts in the 80s to young hoops fans,
remains tilted toward the Atlantic Ocean.
The Celtics are 9-2 against the Lakers in the
finals.
Boston missed its
first crack at closing out the series in Game
5, but the Celtics didn't miss on
their second swing, running the Lakers out of the gym.
"Beat L.A.?" More
like "Beaten L.A."
Bryant, the regular-season MVP,
finished with 22 points
on 7-of-22 shooting.
He started 4-of-5 from the
field and seemed intent on
forcing a Game 7. But he missed seven shots in a
row and everywhere he went,
L.A.'s No. 24 ran smack into a wall of Boston
defense as high as the Green
Monster.
"They were definitely the best
defense I've seen the entire
playoffs," Bryant said. "I've seen some pretty
stiff ones and this was right up
there with them. The goal was to win a
championship, it wasn't to win MVP or
anything like that, it was to win a
championship."
With Garnett scoring 17
points and Pierce adding 10,
Boston built a 58-35 halftime lead, and unlike Game
2 when they let the Lakers trim a
24-point lead to two in the fourth quarter
before recovering, the Celtics
never stopped.
They pushed their lead to 31
in the third and a
mind-blowing 43 at one point.
No team had to work harder
for a
championship than these Celtics, who were playing in their record 26th
postseason game
after being pushed to seven by Atlanta and Cleveland before
beating Detroit
in six to win the Eastern Conference title.
They entered
Game 6 slowed
by injuries as Pierce, Kendrick Perkins (shoulder) and Rondo
(ankle) were
less than 100 percent. There was also uncertainty surrounding
Allen, who
stayed behind in Los Angeles following Game 5 after his youngest son
became
ill and was diagnosed with diabetes. The Celtics needed three planes to
get
back from L.A. and didn't get home until late Monday night.
But there
were no excuses, and just as they had while winning 66 games during the
regular
season, the Celtics got a record seven 3-pointers from Allen and
plenty of help
from their bench as P.J. Brown, James Posey, Leon Powe and rookie Glen "Big
Baby" Davis came in and contributed.
It was a group effort by this gang
in
green, which bonded behind Rivers, who borrowed an African word ubuntu
(pronounced
Ooh-BOON-too) and roughly means "I am, because we are" in English,
as the
Celtics' unifying team motto.
Rivers, who never won a title during 13
seasons as a player, was nearly run out of town last season as the proud
Celtics
dropped off the league's radar screen. But he remained confident,
boosted by
encouragement from his father, Grady, a former police lieutenant
who told him to
hang tough.
Grady Rivers died in the season's first
week, and never got to
see his son fulfill his dream.
As the final
seconds ticked off, Rivers
recalled his father.
"My first thought was
what would my dad say," Rivers
said, "and honestly I started laughing
because I thought he would probably say,
if you knew my dad, 'It's about
time. What have you been waiting for?"'
Notes: The Celtics set a finals
record with 18 steals. ... Allen was poked
in the left eye in the second
quarter by Lamar Odom and spent much of the second
quarter getting treatment
in the locker room. ... The Celtics joined Golden
State (1974-75) and
Portland (1976-77) as the only teams to win a championship
after missing the
playoffs the previous year. ... Boston went 48-7 at home,
including 13-1 in
the postseason. ... Jackson is 193-84 in the postseason.

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=424933

No comments: