Lakers win Game 5 to send series back to Boston

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Pack up the championship trophy and book a flight back to Boston, the NBA finals aren't over yet. The Los Angeles Lakers are headed East to try a historic comeback of their own.

Kobe Bryant scored 25 points, including a decisive dunk in the final minute - and Lamar Odom added 20 as the Lakers, playing with pride on their star-studded stage, prevented the Celtics from winning a 17th title with a 103-98 win in Game 5 on Sunday night to close to 3-2 in this restored rivalry.

"We didn't want to see any champagne popping," Odom said. "It wasn't easy. I wouldn't expect it to be."

No team has overcome a 3-1 deficit in the finals to win a title. The first 28 failed, and now the Lakers, who blew a 24-point lead and lost Game 4 and nearly squandered a 19-point lead in Game 5, have a chance to do something extraordinary.

They'll have to win on the Celtics' parquet floor Tuesday night to force a winner-take-all Game 7, where anything is possible.

Especially with Bryant, the game's best player, on hand.

"We've won on the road before," Bryant said. "We've played in tough environments before."

But the league's MVP and uberforce, who spent much of last summer grumbling to Lakers management for help to get him a fourth championship ring, didn't have to fly a solo mission to extend L.A.'s season for at least another game.

Pau Gasol had 19 points and 13 rebounds, Odom had 11 rebounds and four blocks and Derek Fisher added 15 points.

"We were aggressive. We played hard," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "Not smart all the time, but we played hard."

Paul Pierce led the Celtics with 38 points, Kevin Garnett added 13 points and 14 rebounds, and Ray Allen had 16 points. But Boston's Big Three couldn't close their first chance at winning it all, and now will get two cracks at home to finish the job.

"Guys are down and upset because they thought they could have, they thought they should have," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "We played all year to have home court."

After scoring 15 points in the first quarter, Bryant went cold from the floor and finished just 8-of-21. But he made a big steal, poking the ball away from Paul Pierce and streaking down to deliver a two-handed dunk with 37.4 seconds left.

"I just was kind of reading the play and I was able to get my hands on the ball and get out and get a dunk," Bryant said.

The Celtics called a timeout, Jack Nicholson jumped to his feet and the scoreboard in Staples Center flashed: Not In Our House!

When the final horn sounded, purple and gold streamers fell from the ceiling and the public address announcer said, "Game 6 will be Tuesday night in Boston. This is not over yet."

On Saturday, Bryant had said "this is far from over," and he could be right.

Accused of being selfish and too tough on his not-as-talented teammates, Bryant can bow to the other Lakers for sending the series back across country.

Gasol, the 7-foot Spanish center criticized for being pillowy soft, didn't back down underneath and was able to get Garnett into foul trouble.

But just as they did in Game 4, when they staged the biggest comeback in finals history, the Celtics pushed the Lakers to the brink of summer with another rally. This one fell a little short, but the outcome was still in doubt when Pierce, who grew up hating Boston like every other kid from L.A., made two free throws with 1:14 remaining to get the Celtics to 97-95.

Fisher then missed a jumper and the Celtics appeared to be in business when Pierce fought off two Lakers for a rebound. But as he dribbled toward the basket, Bryant reached around and knocked the ball away to Odom, who then fed Bryant for his slam.

Still, the Celtics wouldn't go away.

After Bryant missed one of two free throws with 16 seconds left, Eddie House nailed a 3-pointer to make it 101-98 with 14 seconds left. House then nearly stole the ensuing inbounds pass, but Bryant, sprawled out on the floor, got the ball to Fisher, who drew a desperation foul.

Fisher then made two free throws and stole Boston's last pass as Lakers fans, stunned to silence a few nights ago, left the building dreaming of seeing another improbable comeback.

This is the 11th meeting - and first since 1987 - between the league's two most stories franchises, and it could be headed for a crescendo befitting the matchups between Bird and Magic, McHale and Abdul-Jabbar, and Russell and West.

Before the game, Lakers coach Jackson said the only way for his team to approach a close-out game was to keep playing.

"A lot of things can happen," he said. "We're young enough and dumb enough to be able to do this."

With Bryant, they have the smarts and skills to get it done.

He made four 3-pointers in the first eight minutes and his free throw gave the Lakers a 25-15 lead. The Celtics were forced to extend their defense, and Bryant made them pay when he faked a long-range shot and fired a pass underneath to Vladimir Radmanovic to make it 29-15.

Odom, a model of inconsistency in the series, drove the lane for a hoop to put the Lakers ahead by 16, and Gasol's bucket in the final second made the overhead scoreboard read: Lakers 39, Celtics 22.

Most teams might panic. Not the Celtics. They were in a bigger hole - 21 points - after the first quarter in Game 4 when they staged their epic rally.

And, sure enough, back Boston came.

When Sasha Vujacic scored, the Lakers' lead bulged to 19 and the oh-so-trendy L.A. faithful were carrying on like a rowdy East coast crowd. That's when the Celtics began chipping away as Pierce scored six points and Allen, Tony not Ray, scored two quick baskets.

The Celtics' rally seemed short-lived when Garnett picked up his third personal, but with the Lakers unable to get anything to drop, Pierce made a layup and 3 to make it 43-39 before Odom finally ended Los Angeles nearly six-minute scoring drought.

The Lakers briefly regrouped but P.J. Brown scored on a putback and Pierce hit another 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds left as the Celtics closed to 55-52 at half and bounded toward their locker just 24 minutes from a title.

source : http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8249932/Lakers-win-Game-5-to-send-series-back-to-Boston

Which prevails -- Lakers' offense or Celtics' defense?

Call it the immovable object versus the unstoppable force.

Lost in the wave of excitement about the retro NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the L.A. Lakers is the contrast in styles these two teams represent. When the Lakers have the ball, keep your eyes peeled, because it doesn't get any better than this matchup: the best offense in the game against one of the best defenses of all time.

Boston led the league in regular-season defensive efficiency by a large margin at 96.2. Relative to the league, only two teams in the past 35 years were better defensively, the 2003-04 Spurs and the 1992-93 Knicks (see chart).

Though we can't compare the Celtics to any team before the 1973-74 season because the league didn't track turnovers until then, we can consider this team a worthy successor to the Russell-era mantle of defensive dominance. Feisty D allowed the team with the league's 10th-best offense to roar to a league-best 66 wins.

All-Time Defensive Efficiency Leaders, Relative to League*
Team	Year	Def. Eff.	League Avg.	Differential
San Antonio	2003-04	92.31	100.84	-8.53
New York	1992-93	96.77	105.07	-8.20
Boston	2007-08	96.16	104.14	-7.98
New York	1993-94	95.85	103.72	-7.83
San Antonio	2004-05	95.80	103.09	-7.29

* - since league began tracking turnovers in 1973-74

Boston has kept up that defensive effort in the postseason. In the playoffs, the Celtics again rank first, narrowly edging out Cleveland at 99.4 and lapping the rest of the competition. Though not quite as dominant as the Celtics' regular-season statistic, this 20-game performance is a reasonable facsimile of the first 82 games.

Meanwhile, out on the other coast, L.A. swept to the top record in the West based largely on the league's third-best regular-season offense. But even that No. 3 ranking understates the Lakers' success.

The Lakers ranked fifth in offensive efficiency on Feb. 5, the day Pau Gasol first donned purple and gold. Then they had a little hiccup in late March, when Gasol missed nine games and all but three minutes of a 10th because of an ankle sprain.

Outside of that, Gasol played in 26 regular-season games for L.A. The team's offensive efficiency mark in those games? A staggering 114.0, which would have led the league by a mile had the Lakers kept that up all year; in fact, had they performed anywhere near that mark for a full season, they would have rivaled the greatest offensive teams in league history.

As with Boston, L.A.'s offensive performance hasn't been quite as jaw-dropping in the playoffs. L.A. is third among playoff teams in offensive efficiency at 109.0, standing a whisker behind Orlando and New Orleans.

Still, the 41 games of the Gasol era have produced very impressive results. Los Angeles has played half a season's worth of games with him in the lineup and has posted an offensive efficiency mark of 112.0, which would have comfortably led the league. (Phoenix was first in the regular season at 111.2.) And 15 of those games have come in the crucible of playoff competition, including five conference finals games against an elite defensive team from San Antonio.

So between Boston's defense and L.A.'s offense, we've got quite a showdown ahead of us. Rarely have two teams had such overwhelming strengths clash.

But it's not the very first time a great offense has met a great defense. Which brings us to these questions: What happens in such impacts? Does the defense win the day? Or does the offensive team's high skill level overwhelm?

Yep, it's time for a history lesson. Let's take a look back in time to see what happened in recent playoff series when great offenses and great defenses clashed and the matchup was at least somewhat even on paper.

source : http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=OffenseDefense-080604
by John Hollinger