Game 4........ how do I describe it ? When I saw that the Celtics were down by 21 points after the 1st quarter, I was ready to write the game off as a loss. The Lakers lead got as big as 24 points and they were still up by 20 points in the middle of the 3rd quarter. And that's when the Celtics started to turn things around........ and ended up winning the game 97-91 !
In footballing terms, it's like being down 0-4 until the 60th minute, and then wind up winning the game 5-4.
So now these 3 guys,
stand on the verge of winning their first NBA title.
Some people named them as favourites at the beginning of the season. 9 out of 10 'experts' named the Lakers as favourites to win the NBA Finals when it was finally confirmed that they would be matching up. I must admit that the Celtics had been struggling to get through the playoffs. Hey ! It's their first time together as a team in the playoffs. In the NBA, you just don't find teams who win on their first trip together in the playoffs. And these Celtics are a team in the 'newest' sense of the word when you consider how many of them are having their first season in Boston. That would be 7 out of the 12 who are having their 1st season as a Celtic. And of that 7, 2 joined in the middle of the season. Now that's 'new'.
But you could see that they were learning. It took them a long time, and it definitely wasn't obvious at first, but by the Detriot series they had started to figure it out. The thing with this team in the playoffs is that when they really, absolutely, totally had to -
They. Always. Come. Through.
And now they're one game away from being NBA Champions 2008. I'm taking leave to watch Game 5 and I hope not to have to take leave for Game 6.
And if the Boston Celtics do eventually win No. 17 - if I get a son, I'm toying with the idea of naming him Paul Kevin Ray Chong.
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