Projo Sports Blog

By ROBERT LEE
JOURNAL SPORTS WRITER

BOSTON -- Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson said that Boston took away the Lakers fire midway through the second quarter when the Celtics used a 26-6 run to break open a 32-29 game and build a 58-35 lead at halftime.

“Well, the last two minutes of the second period buried the team emotionally, and we went into the locker room at halftime and tried to get our guys back on bearing and really came out in the third quarter and really couldn’t turn the momentum around,” Jackson said after the Celtics embarrassed the Lakers, 131-92, to win the series, 4-2, and capture their 17th NBA title.

Boston outscored Los Angeles, 8-0, over the final two minutes of the second quarter.

“There were times when I thought their defense was exceptional, and there were times where I thought we didn’t play very smart basketball in execution,” Jackson said.

The Celtics held the Lakers to 42.2 percent shooting (27-for-64) and forced 19 turnovers.

“We’re disappointed, our fans are disappointed,” Jackson said. “I think everybody is disappointed that we didn’t get a game out of this, give ourselves a chance.”

Jackson said that the Lakers were flat last night.

“I thought we played on our heels from the very get-go,” Jackson said. “They overran us, (Kevin) Garnett knocked Pau (Gasol) down in the lane and scored an easy basket in the first four or five ossessions and set kind of a tone that they were going to establish an aggressive form, and we never met that energy all night tonight.”

Jackson didn’t say the loss was totally Los Angeles’ fault. He gave a lot of credit to the Celtics for controlling the tempo of the game.

“They took us out of what we like to do, and I think a lot of that was off the dribble, and they were able to establish and squelch pretty much our dribble penetration,” Jackson said.

Los Angeles superstar Kobe Bryant kept the Lakers in the game in the first quarter where he scored 11 of the Lakers 20 points, but he quickly faded in the second quarter and nobody else stepped up for the Lakers.

“I think more than anything, Kobe started off that game with a hot hand and then I think his legs, you could see his shot was flat, he didn’t get his shot going, and it really changed the course of the game,” Jackson said.

Bryant only scored 11 points over the final three quarters.

“He started out so strong and then I think he only made three field goals the rest of the game, so that really was a change,” Jackson said. “I think one of the things they did is they really focused on him and made sure that he wasn't going to be the guy that hurt them, and we didn't have guys step up in this instance tonight.”

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