Back to Boston

With their backs against the wall, the Los Angeles Lakers showed the Boston Celtics that they’re not ready to go home just yet. The NBA Finals will be heading back to Boston for Game 6 where the Lakers will try to force a seventh game. Down 3-1, L.A. won a seesaw game that saw the momentum shift from team to team throughout the contest. The Lakers got off to a scorching start, dropping 39 points in the first half. But the Celtics once again showed their resiliency by storming back in the second quarter, trimming the Laker lead from 17 to just three at the half. The Lakers then won their first third quarter of the season prior to briefly losing the lead in the final period before finishing just strong enough to secure the victory.

The Lakers have some life left in them, though their habit of losing big leads in this series does worry me. They need to finish games better. Even when it looked like the Lakers had the game wrapped up, they almost turned the ball over in the final seconds which would have given the Celtics a chance to tie the game. The Laker team that played the first quarter of Sunday’s game is a team that can win two games in Boston; the team in the other three quarters is not. Kobe Bryant had a great first quarter, but was unimpressive in the remaining three, but Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom picked up the slack and we finally saw some physical play out of the Lakers’ bigs. With similar physicality and a more consistent effort from Bryant, The Lakers may just be able to pull off a major comeback.

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