Cigar Weekly

BOSTON - The musty-sweet smell of cigar smoke began wafting toward the ceiling of The Garden with 2:21 left in the basketball game.

It made its way up to the rafters, where the Boston Celtics' 16 NBA championship banners and 22 retired numbers have simultaneously served as reminders and millstones.

Another time, another place - like, say, 40 years ago in another Boston Garden - this would have been unremarkable. But in TD Banknorth Garden in June of 2008? Unthinkable. First of all, you ain't supposed to smoke indoors anymore. Second of all, why in God's name would a basketball game be played in Boston in June?

But on this Tuesday night in Boston, smoking bans were temporarily suspended and Celtic Pride - and posturing - was back in vogue. The Boston Celtics' hastily arranged grouping of singular greats - Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen - and veteran role players - James Posey, Eddie House and P.J. Brown - finished off one of the great turnaround seasons in sports history. From 24 regular season wins last year to 82 and an NBA championship this year.

They finished it off with an audacious 131-92 disgracing of the Lakers. It was an overwhelming and less-than-sporting result that would have brought a smile to the face of the Celtics' OCP (Original Cigar Puffer) Red Auerbach.

And while the bedrock angle to this series was about the renewal of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, that angle got trumped hard by the dominance of the Celtics defense and the Lakers' inability to generate consistent offense from anyone not named Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers were overwhelmed by the roster Boston general manager Danny Ainge built in the offseason and by the schemes and buy-in that Celtics coach Doc Rivers got beginning last fall during a preseason European junket.

"This is what we talked about," said Finals MVP Paul Pierce. "It's one thing to talk about it, another thing to go out and do it, and we did it. It's so gratifying. We got to the point where we were getting tired of the coaches every day, but hey, we put in hard work all the way from September, getting here early, going to Rome, staying together, the guys dropping their egos for the good of the team, sacrificing so much."

None of the Celtics stars sacrificed as much of his game as Ray Allen. His shot attempts were sliced, his output - especially in the playoffs - was critiqued. His selflessness in pursuit of a cherished ring was emblematic of what Boston needed to do to accomplish its goal.

"We talked about this at the beginning of the year," said Allen. "We spotlighted the wall in our practice facility. We talked about it in Rome. We talked about it in September when the trades went down. This truly to me was a team coming together where everybody put individual agendas aside, and we just stepped up to the plate and we did what it was to do the team thing. Of course we had bumps along the road. There was frustration. There were times when we were trying to figure everything out and what we needed to do and how we needed to proceed. But we always came back to each other as a team, and to finally win this and to prove we're the best team in the NBA this year, everything we went through was definitely worth it, and we know exactly what it takes to be the best. It's not easy, but to be the best you have to give up a lot, and we gave up a lot but we definitely took a lot along the way."

They took the heart from the Lakers, that's for certain. Game 6 was a "game" with 7:54 left in the first half when it was 32-29, Celtics. A hailstorm of 3s and bad Laker passes and a ridiculous Nerfhoop shot by Garnett helped put Boston up 58-35 at the break and sucked the drama from the game so that the second half was a virtual victory lap. The final minutes looked like Phi Slamma Jamma revisited. While the Boston crowd chanted "Beat L.A.!" "Seventeen!" And "You're not Jordan!" the Celtics drilled 3s and dunked like a team unconcerned about ramifications.

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

Energy and attitude are as much to credit for Boston's success as talent. Garnett's barely controlled on-court rage helped Pierce funnel his own intensity in ways more productive than when the Celtics were bad. It's rare when these hired guns teams all fire precisely and coalesce. There are probably more instances of it failing than succeeding.

But this year, for the Celtics, it did.

"You guys look at Kevin, myself and Ray," said Pierce. "We sacrificed so much of what we did throughout our careers to get to this point because we've done everything we've been able to do individually, won all type of awards, but never made it to the mountaintop, and today it's like a breath of fresh air."

Except for the cigar smoke.