NBA Finals 2010: Lakers beat Celtics in game 3, 91-84
The Los Angeles Lakers stole the homecourt advantage back from the Boston Celtics with a 91-84 win at the TD BankNorth Garden in Boston.
The Lakers now have a 2-1 advantage heading into Thursday’s game 4 in Boston, which essentially becomes a must-win for the Celtics.
Ray Allen missed all 13 of his shots in the Celtics’ Game 3 loss. One more miss and he would have tied a Finals record.
Perhaps he was taking longer to wash the worst shooting night of his life from his pores. Or maybe Allen was staring into the falling water wondering how, just two nights after hitting the most 3-pointers in a Finals game, he went 0-for-13 from the floor.
One night a record, the next night a wreck.
“It’s a hell of a swing,” Celtics coach Doc River said.
When Allen finally returned to his locker, where a crush of reporters and cameras and recorders awaited, he was impeccably dressed. It did nothing to hide the frustration on his face.
Forty-eight hours ago he’d hit eight 3-pointers to lead the Celtics to victory and spent the postgame answering questions about similarities to Michael Jordan. On Tuesday, he missed eight 3-pointers and five short ones to boot. M.J. wasn’t mentioned.
The only bright note is Allen didn’t miss one more shot, which would’ve tied him for the worst shooting performance in Finals history and given him the most unlikely consecutive record-setting games in history–one at both ends of the spectrum.
“For me, I always think every one is going in,” Allen would say.
Only this time not a single one did.
“I had a good rhythm out there,” he said.
Only the ball kept clanking away. The owner of the most honey-sweet shot in the NBA lost it somewhere on the flight from L.A. to Boston.
“I think you guys look at it as a difference in the two nights,” Allen said. “I just tip my hat to their defense.”
Kobe Bryant finished the game with 29 points, and Derek Fisher gave the Lakers a boost by scoring 16 points in the game to take the victory in Game 3.
Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are playing at their best right now on the low post, and quite the opposite for Kevin Garnett as he is not playing at his best right now, scoring less than 10 points per game or being outrebounded by the bigger men of theLakers.
Game 4 is Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.
