The playbill is prepared, the marquees are set, and popcorn is ready – friends, after the most scrutinized off-season in history, the NBA is finally back.

And, despite what some might have you believe, there is a whole world of reasons to be curious and obsessive about the season ahead that have nothing to do with the Miami Heat.

At this point there is very little left to say about the Super Friends. If you care about sports at all, there is a good chance you tuned in Tuesday night to see the Heat’s Opening Night flop. What’s more is that the endless examination of all things Big Three each of us partook in this summer means we already had an opinion about this team months before the ball went up at the TD Garden.

So if we all know the prospect the Heat represent, we needn’t scrutinize them further as one of the season’s biggest story line. If ‘taking your talents to South Beach’ is now a globally recognized idiom, it is clear they are storyline one, two and three for most fans.

That annoying coworker of yours who doesn’t know an And-One from an Offside? He is a Heat fan. You? You know that, coast-to-coast, there is more to the NBA this year. Much more.

You know that the road to the Finals still runs through Los Angeles, and that the only assured detour is the expressway outside Boston. The teams who gave us one of the more memorable NBA Finals of the past 20 years just a few months ago just reloaded and got better.

A scary thought, but Tuesday night already showed us as much.

The Lakers held off Houston thanks to new signee Steve Blake (a perfect fit the Triangle), while the Celtics’ restocked depth already looks like it will pose the greatest threat to Miami next spring.

For the Lakers the story remains the same – it begins and ends with Kobe Bean Bryant. Yes, their bench is stronger than a year ago, and yes, Pau Gasol is showing signs of emerging as a transcendent player (perhaps the best at his position league-wide), but the Lakers’ title hopes will come down to how healthy Bryant is next spring, and how much (if anything) he’s lost with all the NBA mileage on his body. Even the masses that hate the Lakers admit it is more fun to root against them than nearly anyone, so watching Bryant try to tie Michael Jordan with six rings and Phil Jackson go for an incredible fourth three-peat will be darn good television.

In Boston, meanwhile, the runners-up from last season have a chip on their shoulder the size of the MassPike and, early slip-up to Cleveland aside, look poised to make a statement early this season. Whereas last year the Celtics were content to coast into the playoffs from the New Year on, the talk around the team this preseason is that of a group that is hungry for more, not one that is biding their time. While inevitably the focus will remain on their Big Three of Garnett, Allen, and Pierce, it is likely that Rajon Rondo has surpassed them as the team’s most important piece. What’s more, their bolstered front-line includes a cast of former MVPs and All-Stars with the veteran savvy and, more importantly, the size to beat the Orlando and Miamis of the world.

If Lakers-Celtics isn’t compelling enough for you, perhaps you are more curious in the happenings in Phoenix, where the Suns are determined to answer the question “How many small forwards is too many?” by trotting out a team with multiple interchangeable parts in hopes that Steve Nash can make everything fit and repeat last season’s magical playoff run. Few are expecting the Suns to even make the playoffs this year, but one thing you can never accuse a Nash-led team of being is uninteresting. Whether he can again push them to lead the league is scoring for a sixth year in a row, to say nothing of whether he can maintain his person streak of 50-win seasons going, is compelling drama for any fan.

Drama, or perhaps more accurately tragedy, is a trait that has defined the health of the hard-luck Houston Rockets for the last few years, and they enter this season as another team worthy of the hoop fanatics’ attention. Yao Ming’s health has long betrayed his greatness. His return this week after missing all of last year following surgery on his feet is one of the happier developments of this oh-so-young NBA season. If only for his humility and perseverance we should all be rooting for the Rockets’ version of a ‘pitch-count’ (they are strictly limiting him to 24 minutes a game and no more) to work out. If you need extra incentive to watch, it comes via his backup, Brad Miller, who has previously proved he was born to play in a Rick Adelman system.

Those looking intently at the injury reports in Texas will likely be just as keen on the drama in the Pacific Northwest, where the internet’s favourite team, the Blazers, is hoping to avoid a repeat a season that saw them forced to cobble together a lineup that won more games than they should have thanks to sheer resolve and team play. If Portland can remain healthy (admittedly a big ‘if’ for a team featuring Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla) and happy (rumours of locker-room and front office riffs have floated all summer), they are a real threat to beat anyone out West.

The tension in Portland is a foothill compared to the Rockie-sized turmoil a few states over in Colorado. The drama in Denver, where the Carmelo Anthony saga has been front-and-centre all summer, refuses to go away. With no end in sight, the speculation around a trade involving Anthony may derail Denver’s season.

The impact that anxiety has is a storyline that will define the hierarchy of the Western Conference, and it may be just as large a story on the Atlantic seaboard, where Anthony’s most-likely destination, the Knicks, appear to be on the path to a revival. The significance of the Knicks being relevant in the NBA landscape again cannot be undersold: outside of the Lakers and Celtics, this is the marquee franchise in the game. While their restructuring is still a work in progress to be sure, the developments at Madison Square Garden should excite fans everywhere.

While New York is positioning itself to be a young team building to win tomorrow, the Bulls are far more remarkable: a young team built to win now. While they may still be a few years away from planning parade routes down Michigan Avenue, they do have most of the pieces in place to make a serious playoff run: superstar leader (Rose), energy and enthusiasm (Noah), strong rebounding (Boozer), and outside shooting (Korver). Watching whether Rose can take the next step in his development and truly becomes one of the league best five or ten players should thrill fans all year.

Those watching the Bulls progress will also no doubt be tracking the developments in Oklahoma City, where the Thunder have become media darlings and everyone’s chic pick to usurp the Western crown from the Lakers. While it may be a bit much to ask that from Oklahoma’s youngster just yet, there is no denying the appeal they represent. They have the league brightest, most-talked about young star in Kevin Durant, who at 22 is already a pre-season favourite for MVP, and a wingman in the form of fellow 22-year old Russell Westbrook, who is ready for the world to realize just what a special talent he is.

Certainly there is a plethora of storylines to keep fans engaged throughout the season ahead. Sure, the happenings in South Beach will have the world’s interest, but they are far from the only reason to be excited about what could be the most fascinating season of the last decade or two.

The NBA is blessed with so many appealing young stars, so many teams with reasons to be hopeful, and so many compelling narratives that we as fans should count ourselves spoiled.

They beauty of the start of any season is that no one truly know what will happen. It was Einstein who said that the most beautiful thing we can experience in life is the mysterious. So welcome back basketball. Bring on the ‘amazing’.

Those blessed enough to face this challenge would be quick to tell you how there is no means for comparison – they love them each in their own unique way, and neither could ever be better nor worse than another.

For them, each ring comes with its own set of obstacles and hardships. The level of commitment and perseverance required to win even one title makes it special and district. Certainly for those directly involved, each title is incomparable.

This is not true for fans though.

Not all champions are created equal.

If you are a supporter of a team that has never tasted post season glory, you will disagree vehemently, but I hold by the position that all titles are not the same.

The championship Boston won in 1986 was not as meaningful as it should have been because their blood rivals, the Lakers, quit in the conference finals and didn’t make it to the Finals.

That ’86 Celtic team was perhaps the best team ever assembled, but their championship glory is remembered less vividly than the Lakers’ win from 1987. That is because that ring came via Magic Johnson beating the Celtics, in the Garden, with the baby skyhook. That sets it apart in people’s minds.

When it comes to defining the relative importance of a ring, the details matter.

There are a dozen of other examples of this truth: Chicago’s titles over Utah mean more than those over Seattle; Houston’s championships being devalued slightly because of the absence of Michael Jordan; Golden State’s 1975 win is well remembered precisely because the Bullets team they swept was so heavily favoured; and on and on it goes.

The most recent, and relevant example of this of course is the championship won by the Lakers last season. Point –blank, that title was somewhat diminished in the eyes of Los Angeles fans. Not in that it wasn’t and incredible accomplishment, or something that deserved to be celebrated and remembered as part of history – that is all true. But as a Laker fan, it didn’t mean as much to mean as it should have because of Kevin Garnett injury. A ring against Orlando is incredible, but a banner coming at the expense of Boston…now that is the stuff of legend.

Such it was that last night’s win by the Lakers deserves a special place in the cannon for the organization and fans alike. Kobe Bryant said afterwards that this title meant the most of any of the five he has won because it was the hardest one to get.

Never before had Bryant played in a Game 7 in the Finals. Never before had he had to expend as much energy as he did against this Boston team. And never before had he beaten a hatred rival.

His first ring came at the expense of an aging Pacers squad whose nucleus was making its last run as a true title contender. His second and third came over over-matched Sixers and Nets squads respectively that never posed a significant threat. Last year’s title over Orlando was long on personal redemption, but short on an established rivalry.

This matter more. Because it was the Celtics. Because of 2008. Because it was Game 7.

His legacy changed last night because of how this championship came about. To be honest, it shouldn’t have come about at all.

As the biggest Kobe apologist there is, even I say flatly that he was awful in the game’s first half. He was too wound up, too excited, too driven. His was making his counter-movements too quickly before the defense could react to his first move, and he was taking hero shots to try and knock the Celtics out with one punch.

But luckily for him, his teammates carried him. Ron Artest, who really deserves to have this entire recap be about him based on his performance last night, carried the Lakers with his best game of the season. Pau Gasol was brilliant, and even though he was not as efficient as he can be, was a major difference in how the game’s last twelve minutes played out.

Credit Bryant for finding other ways to contribute though. Yes, his shooting was horrendous (6-24), but he still managed to score 23 points and certainly didn’t just stumble into those 15 rebounds. He may have been too wound up, and forcing everything, but his hustle and determination were clear. If anything, he wanted to win too much, he drive was too strong, to the point that it almost cost him everything.

What this championship does for his place on the list of all-time greats will be debated and discussed for months and years to come.

Is he the best player of his era? Does a fifth title make him the best Laker ever? How close is he to surpassing Michael Jordan? These are all questions that we will dispute and argue about for the entire summer, if not longer.

There will be plenty of time for that in the weeks ahead (so expect it to come from yours truly).

For now though, it can be definitively that this ring means more to him that any other.

It means more to his place in history, and more to him personal. And not just because it puts him one put on his rival and old running mate Shaquille O’Neal, though that doesn’t hurt.

It means more because of who his team beat. And how they beat them – together.

One win not to avenge old losses, but to allow for future opportunities.

One win not to settle a grudge dating back several years, but to enable themselves the ability to make history.

One win was not going to establish a new identity, or to resolve their collective failures for Game 5. A win would simply allow them another opportunity to accomplish their goal. It would allow them to continue competing.

And now, after denying the Celtics a chance to claim a title from them by virtue of a complete and utter smackdown of a win, the Lakers still need just one win. Only this time it is not to guarantee the chance to fight another day. This next win is to guarantee a spot in history.

One game is left in the NBA season. Thursday night, someone is going to win another ring. That wouldn’t have been true had the Lakers not responded Tuesday night the way they did since it would already be over. Yet thanks to their defensive aggressively, their hustle, and their simplified offensive game plan, here we are.

There will be much said about Game 7 over the next few days. The truism that the team who starves more for a championship will always win it will be trotted out shamelessly (perhaps because it is true).

There are very few between-game adjustments the coaching staffs can make at this point – after the past six games, these teams know who each other are and the question simply becomes which team executes better. There will be no great strategic swings. Heart and hustle and trust will dictate who will be our champion.

For the Lakers, it will once again be a matter of defense. In Game 6, they held the Celtics to their lowest point total in Boston’s NBA Finals history. They moved their feet to cut off passing lane, they tightened up on the ball carrier, and they did not allow easy putbacks and transition points.

All of that caused Boston to post a point total tied for the second lowest in a Finals game in the shot-clock era. The Celtics suffered the fourth largest margin of defeat for a team that was one win away from winning the NBA championship. But you’d be crazy to think Boston is fearful of the opportunity they have on Thursday to respond.

There is no room for fear at this stage. No time of it. Limp and lousy as Boston looked in Game 6, they just as easily may throw a switch and be lights-out on Thursday. It would be a shock to see them be pushed around and outworked the same way they were in this game. After all, the Lakers were a wounded animal who was now back on familiar ground. The fight had shifted to their home turf – it would almost be more surprising if they hadn’t responded so brazenly.

From Ron Artest’s early block on Rajon Rondo to Jordan Farmar’s dive for a loose ball, these Lakers showed a flurry of activity that made it hard to see any way they would lose this night. Their movement was better, their cuts sharper, and their defensive pursuit was on point than at any time since the series opener.

The Lakers’ leader, Kobe Bryant, was his consistent, excellent self. 11 early points set the tone that this was a game he was ready to dominate if it became necessary. But it didn’t. Yes Bryant’s 26-point, 11-rebound, three-assist, four-steal line looks great. But he had help this time, and lots of it.

His sidekick Pau Gasol’s performance drove the team. Gasol was one assist shy of a triple double with 17 points, 13 rebounds, nine assists and three blocks. This was the sort of excellence we know him to be capable of, and that was lacking in Game 5. The much maligned Ron Artest even chipped in as well, finishing with 15 points and six rebounds as he outscoring Paul Piece.

As a team the Lakers outrebounded the Celtics handily, which really broke the game open. They were up 30-13 on the glass at half, and 39-24 through three quarters. They also outscored the Celtics in the paint by eight, had five more steals, and 11 more second-chance points.

Those are the coaches points, the hustle points, that win game at this level, and the ones that weren’t there for Los Angeles in Boston.

There can be no let up though. Boston is 2-0 in the playoffs after it has suffered a loss by 20 or more points. Further, Boston’s bench will not produce another no-show in Game 7. It had outscored the Lakers in four of the first five games, but on Tuesday did not have a single point through the first three quarters while the Lakers’ bench put up 24 points themselves. That is not going to happen again, and Rasheed Wallace is unlikely to produce another 0-7 performance.

Boston couldn’t do anything right Tuesday while the Lakers could do no wrong. Just 48 hours earlier the roles were reversed. Remembering that, it is easy to see how unpredictable Game 7 looks to be. The team that wins on Thursday cannot wait for the moment to come to them. They cannot passive look for the ball, or wait for rebounds. They must demand ball possession and attack the glass with everything they can muster. They can’t be a step slow, as the Celtics were in Game 6. They can’t think strategically about the next game.

Everything else has been prelude to this. Game 7 is a reality. Both teams will have to live for the moment on Thursday, because history is only kind to those that actively go out and write it.

And make no mistake, that is the opportunity Thursday’s game presents – a chance for one of these teams to place themselves in the hall of the game’s legends. Neither team will be victims of their own fate. Instead, one will be the master of their fate, and authors of their own history.

See you Thursday.

56.3 is the percentage Boston shot as a team for the game, making them the first team to shoot better than 50% from the floor in a game against the Lakers all postseason.

64.7 is the percentage Boston was shooting entering the fourth quarter.

14 is the number of Boston fast-break points, 11 more than Los Angeles managed.

7 is the number of Celtics who shot better than 50% from the floor for the game.

46 is the number of points in the paint Boston had, which accounted for half of their total points.

And 18 is the number of banners that could be in the rafters of the TD Garden next season if the Celtics can win one of the next two games in Los Angeles.

It appears only one member of the Lakers who showed up Sunday night.

Kobe Bryant’s singular brilliance made what should have been a 20-point blowout win for Boston a game the Celtics had to fight for down the stretch to secure a 92-86 win. It is safe to say that without his 19 point third-quarter explosion (which was a run for the ages) this game would have been a flat out humiliation for the Lakers.

No other Laker brought anything of value to this game. Ron Artest was embarrassed by Paul Pierce (27 points) while continuing to take awful shots on the other end and miss critical free throws. Lamar Odom again underwhelming with just eight points and eight rebounds. Andrew Bynum had only one rebound in 31 minutes.

Most frustrating though for Laker fans was the disappearance of Pau Gasol. That player we all praised for being “tougher” and “stronger” after Game 1 has gone into hiding. Gasol was totally worked over by Kevin Garnett, scored only 12 points, and was shamed completely when Tony Allen came from across the key to block what should be been an easy dunk near the end of the third quarter, a play that explains a lot about this series.

If this was truly a game about numbers, the ratio of 5:1 comes to mind, since the Celtics were a team of five players working together in Game 5 while the Lakers reverted to a one man squad, a form not seen from them since before Gasol arrived in Los Angeles.

This team wasn’t supposed to fold this way. In 2008, the Celtics were simply tougher, more driven, and more focused than Los Angeles. Those Lakers weren’t ready. A week ago this year’s squad looked like it was. So what happened?

Credit goes to Boston, whose defensive effort has been masterful since Game 2. They have made Bryant work for every single inch he has gotten this series, have gotten into the head of Ron Artest, overwhelmed Odom, and have mostly neutralized Gasol’s impact.

As a Los Angeles fan, I must admit that I could do without all the theatrics, the woofing, the barking, the chirping, and everything else that Nate Robinson, Glen Davis and Kevin Garnett bring to the table, but credit them for backing it up – this Celtics team may be front-running hams, but so far they have earned that right.

Bryant will not be able to carry his team on his back to two straight wins. Not against these Celtics. He may be able to go off on Tuesday night and steal a win, but to avoid a Boston celebration on their home floor, the rest of the Lakers will need recognize the moment before them and step up.

After the game, Ron Artest reportedly said, “Everything we did, we did together.” If Artest means that as a collective critique of the fact that every single player not named Bryant was outplayed by his counterpart, fine. If he means it as some sort of justification that the loss can’t be pinned on any one player, great. But that is only because it can be put on multiple players, who have been so very below average.

Boston could have had this game by 20 plus points. That is a direct result of Garnett outplaying Gasol, and Pierce owning Artest. The fact that it was only five with 40 seconds to play is misleading. The Celtics won Game 5 because they executed better, they played together, and they all showed up. The same obviously cannot be said for the Lakers.

If Los Angeles hopes to turn this around, they will have to seize with the inconsistency effort, the apathetic attitude, and the lack of execution.

It’s not over yet. But the numbers suggest it might as well be. Here is hoping we at least get treated to a seventh game – as basketball fan, we deserve that.

That is the moniker that Nate Robinson applied to the duo of himself and Glen “Big Baby” Davis – the same duo that was responsible for winning the Celtics Game 4 and tying the series.

Branding themselves after a bruising ogre and his chattering sidekick seems fitting. After all, Davis’ relentless work down low seemed monstrous enough as he bowled and brawled his way to 18 points on a mere 10 shots, adding five rebounds (four of them offensive) for good measure.

The fiery Robinson was no slouch himself. He poured in 12 points on just eight shots while still performing admirably controlling the ball, evidenced by his committing just one turnover in 17 minutes.

And certainly he was his usual emotional self as he picked up a technical for getting in Lamar Odom’s face after being knocked down.

These unlikely heroes didn’t go from Far Far Away of course, but instead their fairy tale’s roots came from the middle of the Celtics’ bench. Their terrific play was the primary reason Boston’s reserves outscored the Lakers’ 36-18.

The game itself seemed to turn on a dime.

With just over a minute to go in the third quarter, Kobe Bryant hit three consecutive 3-pointers to give the Lakers a 62-58. A putback by Davis moved Boston to within two heading into the fourth quarter, but with Boston’s backups on the court to start the final frame, Phil Jackson gambled to go for the kill and left his starters in to try and push the Laker advantage.

Needless to say, Boston’s bench had other plans.

Whether it was because Bryant (43 minutes), Pau Gasol (44 minutes) and Ron Artest (42 minutes) were exhausted or simply that the energy and hustle of the Celtic bench overwhelmed them, the results were clear. After Davis and Gasol traded baskets to start the fourth, Boston ripped off nine unanswered points in a blink of an eye to push their advantage to seven with 8:22 left.

The bench domination doesn’t tell the whole story for Boston though. There are of course the small matters of their fast-break advantage (15 points to the Lakers’ 2), points in the paint (54 to 34) and offensive rebounding (16 to 8). It does not take a Hubie Brown-level basketball IQ to understand that if you dominate in transition, outscore you opponent inside despite giving up size, and rule over second-chance points, you should win handily.

To their credit, the Lakers did not roll over entirely after the Davis and Robinson-led assault. Bryant scored 10 of the Lakers’ last 12 points once the Celtic starters reentered the game and managed to cut the Boston lead to six with 32 seconds to go before turning it over for a full-court lay-in that put the game to bed.

Bryant was much more efficient in his scoring than he had been in Game 4, scoring 33 points on 22 shots, but he did not take care of the ball well at all, evidenced by his seven turnovers. Whether or not that was due to his handling the ball more with Derek Fisher sitting out more than usual is difficult to say, but clearly he needs to do a better job in Game 5 on Sunday.

Also pivotal for the Lakers on Sunday will be the availability of Andrew Bynum. The injured Laker center was only able to give his team 12 minutes in Game 4, none of them coming after half. It is fair to suggest that his absence had a lot to do with the way Davis was able to work the offensive glass down the stretch.

Bynum’s knee is certain to not get better before the end of the series, so the task will likely fall to Odom to keep Davis and Kendrick Perkins off the glass, something he failed to do Thursday.

It may not take the Lakers’ calling in a Big Bad Wolf or assembling their torches and pitchforks to chase away the new Celtics twosome, but they will certainly be on notice heading into Game 5 that this Boston team is about much more than just their big name starters.

They were tight and were nowhere near executing their famous triangle offense. After being up by as many as 17 early in the game, the Lakers looked poise for a collapse proportionate to the one they suffered in Game 4 of the Finals two years ago.

In their hour of need, where could they turn? To their superstar Kobe Bryant? Seems logical enough, only Bryant was in the midst of one of the more selfish and inefficient games he’s had in the last three postseasons. No doubt the Celtics defense had a great deal to do with that, as did the Lakers exasperating lack of movement within their offense, but the fact remained that Bryant was off.

How about Pau Gasol? The All-NBA forward had had a quietly effective game offensive, despite allowing Kevin Garnett to own him on defense. Perhaps Gasol should have been the answer, but he mostly spent the fourth quarter letting himself be pushed off the block by backup Glenn Davis.

In that moment, with their lead cut to one, Los Angeles looked to a familiar face to carry the day.

There are certain players you want in a foxhole with you. They are the players whose sense of the moment, and whose confidence and conviction in said moment, carries them to a level of achievement beyond what their level of talent should allow.

Derek Fisher is exactly that type of player.

It sounds unoriginal, trite even, to claim that his character and leadership are what allowed him to hit four of the Lakers next five baskets, but it also is probably true. His skills have diminished noticeably, and Lakers fans repeatedly have wondered aloud whether he ‘still had it’. But even with old legs, he delivers in gut-check time. For evidence, refer to his potential series-shifting “and-one” over three Celtics with just over 40 seconds to play.

He has never been considered more than a role player, with just cause considering his career point per game average is just 9.0 and his career PER of 12.3 puts him below the league average. But as we should all know by this stage, stats do not tell the whole story.

Coaches talk a lot about “11am players”, guys who can make shots from anywhere on the floor in morning shoot-around but who disappear when the lights are on. Rising to the occasion is a skill not every player has while others have it in spades.

That ability to rise to the occasion characterizes how Robert Horry was more valuable in his prime than an all-world talent that shrink in the moment (like, say, Vince Carter).

Of course the hope is to have a star talent who also possesses that indefinable ability of “clutchness”. Unfortunately however, there are only so many Kobe Bryants and Carmelo Anthonys in this world. Often the task falls to the James Poseys or Sam Cassells to play big in the game’s biggest moments.  

Fisher is no different. Whether it is his infamous “Point-Four Shot” from 2004 or his cross-country journey to Utah in 2006, he has long been a player who defined moments instead of being defined by them.

 He spent most of last year’s playoffs as a punchline whilst he was being abused by younger, faster, more dynamic point guards. His response? Hitting a game-tying three with 4.6 seconds left in Game 4 of last year’s Finals to send the game into overtime, and then a tie-breaking three with just over 30 second remaining in overtime secure a 3-1 series lead.

He has never been (and will certainly never be) an All-Star.  He is highly unlikely to make the Hall of Fame.  Yet his name will live on for as long as there is an NBA.

Not in the sense that his jersey will hang in the rafters of the Staple Center, but insofar as NBA diehards will talk about where they were when they saw the “Point-Four Shot”, or now where they were watching him save the Lakers season in Game 3.

In that way Fisher proves that in the history books of the NBA Playoffs, “when” is often more important than “how many”.

If they see themselves as people of the glass half-full variety, the sort of individuals who believe in moral victories, then you should have a great deal of positive elements to take away from Sunday night loss to Boston that tied the series at a game a piece.

Such affirmative Los Angeles fans can say with great confidence that, despite seemingly nothing going right for the purple and gold all night, the team was still in a position to steal a victory in the closing minutes. They dodged bullet after bullet, and almost got away with it.

Of course, for those fans who do not share that positive worldview, Game 2’s various failures point to more trouble ahead as the series heads to Boston for the next three games.

In fact, those Chicken Littles among the Laker faithful might now worry about whether the series will even back it back to Los Angeles next week.

To those pessimists, things look that bleak. That bullet-dodging their optimist counterparts appreciated so much? To the naysayers it just proves the NBA Finals are not the Matrix after all.

“You should have taken the Blue pill,” they say.

Myself? I lean on the advice of the late, great George Carlin and say that while some think the glass is half full and others think it’s half empty, I just think the glass is too big.

There were some positives to take away, and a lot of negatives, and while I believe conceptually in moral victories, they are useful in February, not in June.

The laundry list of things that went wrong for the Lakers is exhaustively long.

First of all, they somehow forgot for the entire first half that Ray Allen is one of the best pure shooters of all-time and gave him open look after open look in transition to the tune of a record seven threes in the first half and eight for the game. Shannon Brown in particular should be embarrass of his defense on Allen, who also needs to be credited with giving one the best individual performances in Finals history.

For the next 20 years, this will be remembered as “The Ray Allen Game”.

Their leader, Kobe Bryant, picked up his third foul with more than three minutes left in the first half and his fifth a mere 45 seconds into the fourth. Foul-trouble or not, Bryant was very human throughout Game 2, and his well-rounded statline hides the fact that he did not attack the rim the same way he did in Game 1, or the baskets he had to concede defensively in the fourth so not to pick up his sixth foul. Simply put, if Bryant plays like that the Lakers cannot win.

Lamar Odom, perhaps the Lakers’ most important X-Factor on offense, picked up three fouls in just 2:38 minutes of play in the first half. For the night he played just 15 minutes and chipped in a mere three points and five rebounds, marking his second poor performance in as many games.

What is there to say about Ron Artest? To begin to describe the depth of his awful play on offense in Game 2 you would need several hours.

Yes, he was that bad.

In 41 minutes, he went 1-10 from the floor, 1-6 from three, 3-8 from the foul line, three turnovers, and about five heart-attack inducing sequences in which he dribbled around with seemingly no purpose or direction.

While the defensive effort he provided was vital to keeping Paul Pierce contained for almost the whole game (Pierce was just 2-11 from the floor), his offensive display will give Laker fans nightmares for weeks, if not months. I’d call attention in particular to the possession in the fourth quarter with a minute and a half to go that saw him waste the entire shot clock, dribble aimlessly into the key, get off-balance, back out the three point line, never look for an open teammate, and jack up one of the ten worst considered shots I’ve seen in my life. That the Lakers got the rebound and Bryant hit a three is a shame, because it will take deserved attention away from this horrendous sequence.

After working so hard in Game 1 and winning the vast majority of hustle plays, the Lakers simply were outworked by the Celtics on nearly every loose ball. This is best shown by Glen Davis’ five offensive rebounds, an indictment of their hustle if there ever was one consider Davis cannot jump over a phonebook.

They wasted what is likely to be the best performance in this series from Andrew Bynum, whose excellence (21 points on just 10 shots, plus seven blocks) was the only thing keeping the game close in the first half. Bynum was only outdone by Pau Gasol, who was as good as we have ever seen him (25 points on 10 shots, eight rebounds, six blocks, and three assists). Los Angeles cannot ask for more productive from their frontline.

They were up by three with 5:21 to play and only scored one more field goal the rest of the game, giving up a lead (on their homecourt!) to a Boston team that lost every fourth quarter to the Magic the previous round.

And on and on it goes.

Of course fans in Boston will surely scream for everyone to hear that every failing listed above is not because of the Lakers shooting themselves in the foot, but because of the excellence of execution that is the Celtics.

Yes, Rajon Rondo was tremendous en route to his fifth career playoff triple-double. Yes, Boston had to go about hitting those 11 three pointers, no matter how open the Lakers transition defense left them to do so. And yes, Rasheed Wallace and Nate Robinson both provide a major lift off the Boston bench. None of that is debatable, even from my view as a Laker diehard.

In the end, whether that metaphorical glass that was Game 2 was half full or empty is debatable. Either way, Game 3 will tip in Boston Tuesday night, with control of the series up for grabs – that much is true whatever your prespective.

The question was certainly valid, as two years ago the Celtics outworked, out-hustled, and outfought Los Angeles. The debate as to whether the Lakers had learned anything seemed central to the question of whether they had a shot in this series.

But perhaps we were all asking the wrong question. After Game 1 on Thursday night, it seems worthwhile to ask not whether the Lakers are the same team that was bulldozed in Game 6 in 2008, but instead wonder if this is the same Celtics team that did the bulldozing.

Thursday night, it certainly didn’t look like it.

Immediately off the tip, Boston was sloppy with the ball, a trend that would play out throughout the game. Those turnovers seemed more a product of Boston’s carelessness with the basketball than anything the Lakers did defensively. That reckless ball movement and an ongoing struggle to rebound effectively were the Celtics’ pain points all year, and both problems reared their head in Game 1.

Moreover, Boston allowed Kobe Bryant to get to the rim with impunity at the start of the game; it is not an exaggeration to suggest Bryant got to the basket without getting knocked down more in Game 1 than in the entire series in 2008.

Those mostly uncontested looks were due as much to Bryant imposing his will on offense as they were the Celtics not being able to be as physical with him and knock him over. Why is that though? How can it be that Boston’s defenders cannot stay in front of Bryant, who is himself two years older and a step slower than in 2008? Why is it that they need to foul so much just to slow down the Los Angeles offense?

To skew former Celtics coach Rick Pitino’s famous rant, maybe it’s because ‘James Posey isn’t coming through that door…P.J. Brown isn’t coming through that door…the real Kevin Garnett isn’t coming through that door.’

That Boston is missing Posey and Brown’s toughness and defensive aggressiveness is obvious. Tony Allen and Ray Allen simply cannot execute the Boston coaching staff’s mandate to ‘shrink the court’ and take away Bryant’s space and ability to put the ball on the deck. That is to say nothing of the ‘matador’ defense practiced by Michael Finley in the first quarter, who looked so slow that I’d be shocked if we see him again all series.

More interesting, and perhaps more consequential, is the decline experienced by Boston’s defensive and emotional leader, Kevin Garnett. Put simply, the Kevin Garnett we saw and loved to watch from two years ago is gone, probably forever. It is not for lack of fire, or heart, or passion – The Big Ticket still wants to win as badly as any player in the league. The trouble is that his body has betrayed his legendary competitively. His knees have broken faith with his desire to still be the baddest big man in the game.

The old Garnett would never let Pau Gasol muscle him around for physical tip-ins. He certainly would never have let Gasol grab eight offensive rebounds, and 14 in total, while himself only pulling in a lowly four. Further, he would not have stood for the sort of body language and indifference the Boston bench showed for much of this game.

Most of all, vintage-Garnett would never have blown back-to-back uncontested lay-ins at the rim as he did in the fourth quarter. Those should have been rim-rattling, violent, ‘hide-the-women-and-child’ type dunks. Instead it was as if Father Time himself blocked those looks.

All this is not to say that the Lakers had nothing to do with their own success. Outrebounding the Celtics by 11 for the game does not happen simply by accident, nor does holding them to just 10% from three. Los Angeles held their ground admirably.

Kobe Bryant was still Kobe Bryant, to the tune of 30 points, seven rebounds and six assists. There will be considerable time in the weeks and months ahead to fawn over his greatness, so let us save this for the near future.

Pau Gasol certainly responded to anyone still wondering if he was “soft”, pouring in 23 points and snatching the aforementioned 14 rebounds. He was not baited into anything foolish when Rasheed Wallace got physical with him to start the fourth, and should be commended for his great play.

The Lakers also have to love what they got from Andrew Bynum (10 points, six rebounds in 28 minutes) given his health being such a big question mark. His size caused problems for Boston the entire first half. And let us not go without mentioning Ron Artest, who not only played intelligent offense, but smothered Paul Pierce for much of the game and came out with a plus/minus rating of +26 for the night.

In Game 1 the Celtics did not intimidate or browbeat the Lakers. They were not the bully they had been two years ago, who seemingly punked the Lakers for their lunch money. Perhaps that swagger and defensive strong-arming will return. Boston had better hope it does Sunday for Game 2, or they will be staring at a rather serious problem.

They ranged from those beautiful in their simplicity (“RON!”) to those delightful for their playfulness (“I think Ron has a bonus built into his deal if he can get Phil Jackson’s head to explode”).

Great though they all were, of the near two-dozen messages I received within minutes of Ron Artest’s game-winning put back lay-in that sealed Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, none seemed more appropriate that the one referencing Vince Vaughn’s immortal line from the end of the comedy classic “Anchorman”.

“Today”, the message read as it echoed Wes Mantooth, “we spell ‘redemption’… R-O-N.” Nothing sums the night up better.

How quickly Artest went from scapegoat to playoff hero is astonishing, but maybe its not exactly as surprising as it appears at first glance. There is no player in the NBA more mercurial, more unpredictable than Ron Artest.

That he took one of the least intelligent shots possible – an unnecessary three at the start of a fresh shot clock – when the Lakers had no rebounders and were trying desperately to bleed out the clock is not that odd.

Artest is anything but prudent, and his decision-making almost never accounts for game situation, time or score. He is a player who thrives off emotion, off raw enthusiasm; stopping to analyze his next move is not something Ron Artest has ever done. Even if the entire Staples Center crowd collectively yet out an audible “NO!”  before he rose up for the three.

Likewise it should not be a surprise that he would recover a few moments later in the form of the biggest rebound and shot of his career to date. Artest’s whole career, really his whole life, is about perceiving and doing the unexpected in both tremendously positive and negative ways.

This is just the latest example.

To those who might suggest that Artest’s putback was nothing but a lucky shot, I do not disagree, but would point out the improbable nature of Jason Richardson’s banked three the play before that tied the game for Phoenix. One lucky shot deserves another.

That is not to cast doubt on the quality of the Suns performance Thursday night. Phoenix showed incredible effort down the stretch and proved just how irrepressible their spirit is.

Down by as many as 18, the Suns showed a level of grit and of confidence that should make their followers proud. Steve Nash in particular was ‘next-world’ great in this contest. By pouring in 29 points and 11 assists, Nash did everything he could to push his team over the top as he hit dazzling pull-ups over Pau Gasol and created easy baskets for his teammates for the entire last six minutes of the game. In fact, Nash was so good, and spoke so calmly after the game, that I would be very surprised if he doesn’t have his teammates ready to hold serve to go out and win Game 6 Saturday night.

They very well might have won Game 5 had it not been for Richardson’s lack of a box-out fresh off that game-tying three.

It might seem harsh to apply blame specifically to him given that he hit that massive shot just a play earlier, but it was nonetheless his responsibility to contain Artest on the glass, which he did not. Nash and Grant Hill could not have played better defense against Kobe Bryant. If you are able to successfully cause Bryant to take as low a percentage shot as they did, you simply cannot forget to get a body on the biggest, heaviest small forward in basketball.

As for Bryant, what more can you say about him at this point. He had 30 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists on Thursday, bringing his averages for the series to a head-shakingly awesome 33ppg, 9.6apg, 7.4rbg on 53.5% shooting from the field. It would appear that he is not quite ready to relinquish his role as “Greatest Player Alive” to LeBron James or Dwyane Wade, and is doing his darndest to remind everyone that very few players ever have played as well when the lights are their brightest.

Artest’s memorable heroics, Lamar Odom’s quiet excellence (17 points and 11 rebounds in Game 5) and Bryant’s calculated brilliance aside, this is a game the Lakers need to celebrate quickly and then leave it in Los Angeles where it belongs. These Suns pose too great a threat to believe for a second that they will roll-off after losing this way.

Los Angeles may have kept its pace as the only team that hasn’t trailed in a series at any time this spring, but they will need more than just last-second redemption to put Phoenix away.

In the meantime I’ll be here, rewinding the video of Craig Sager saying “Queensbridge” and being thankful we ended up with “Good Ron” in Game 5.

Put another way, knowing who you are is a powerful tool precisely because it drives us to know what we are working towards.

This is true for many of us in the day-to-day trenches of modern life of course, but it is perhaps more applicable for groups than individuals. When a collective assemblage knows what its group personality is, and what makes its character unique, it becomes more driven, more determined to achieve its goal.

If identity creates purpose, and personality is what drives intent, we have seen a shift in the dynamics of the Western Conference Finals: it is the Suns who know who they are, who are embracing their sense of self, and who suddenly look like if as they remember their purpose.

The Lakers? They seem more lost than the travelers of Oceanic 815. All it took was an active zone defense for them to forget who they are and forget where their strength lies.

Perhaps this is a case of selective memory loss or short-term amnesia, and the return to the familiar confines of the Staples Center will jog Los Angeles’ collective memory.

But what if it doesn’t? What if the Lakers cannot reaffirm their identity as a team that uses its size and strength to win ball games? In that case, they could very soon be staring up at the Suns in a 3-2 deficit and wondering aloud ‘what just happened?’

Credit Phoenix for that turnabout – they are the ones that have duped Los Angeles into becoming a stand-still, corner jump shooting team these past two games. They have also been the ones outhustling and outworking the Lakers for every loose ball and every long rebound.

The Suns haven’t forgotten who they are. The Lakers have reacted to Phoenix’s active zone by forgetting to go into the paint and settling for low-percentage threes from below-average shooters

By contrast, the Suns just keep doing everything right. Their bench outperformed Los Angeles’ so handily in the two games in Phoenix that to merely call it an advantage is to grossly undersell its dominance. The Phoenix bench destroyed the Lakers. And not just the Lakers’ bench either. In the fourth quarter they took it straight to their starters, and made big shot after big shot to the point that you had to question whether bringing the starters back in would be a downgrade.

Just as important as those big shots the Phoenix bench hit on their fourth quarter run was their disruptive defense. They confounded Derrick Fisher and Jordan Farmar to the point that the Lakers went completely away from the only thing that was working for them through three quarters: the old “get it to Kobe and get out of the way” routine.

Bryant was masterful in his efficiency and sense of direct attack. He hit pull-ups from any angle, and displayed the full range of the NBA’s most complete offensive arsenal of moves and shotmaking ability. But he went long stretches in the fourth without touching the ball and became visibly frustrated with his teammates, waving his arms in disgust as they launched contested shots and overdribbled into turnovers in the lane.

Bryant knew it was better that he initiate from the wing, and better still if he attacked with the dribble drive against the zone. As he continues to hit pull-ups from the midrange, the Suns defense began to sag out more and more on him, drawing the zone towards him and leaving the lane wide open for Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom to cut through clearly for a lay-in.

Only that latter didn’t happen. Instead we saw the rest of the Lakers stand around flat-footed and wait in the corner for long range threes and a plethora of foot-on-the-line twos, as known as the most useless shot in basketball.

On the other end, Amar’e Stoudemire continues to be an absolute beast in the mid-range and driving to the rim with a vengeance. Once he realized that Andrew Bynum’s lack of mobility would not allow him to get to his spot in front of the rim, Stoudemire merely put his head down and went to work, driving into and around Gasol without a second thought.

Of course the question now becomes which Phoenix team will we see on Thursday in Los Angeles. We saw their true-self, their most comfortable identity as a team on Tuesday, as they dictated pace of play and hit shots repeatedly within the first 12 seconds on the shot clock. But can that maintain that? And can their zone, which at its core is a gimmicky defense that no championship team should ever have to rely on, hold for another game?

Time will tell.

It will tell whether their early offense will stay consistent and if Channing Frye can continue his success after breaking through Tuesday.

It will tell whether the Lakers will run Artest and Odom to the rim and the short corner instead of camping them in a position to miss more threes.

It will tell if the Suns can build on their seemingly ever-growing confidence and belief in themselves.

And it will tell us if the Lakers can show patience and attack the Suns weakest defenders (i.e. Stoudemire) more regularly.

More than anything, time will tell us who these teams really are. After all, you are what you repeatedly do. We thought we knew what that meant for both of these squads after two games in Los Angeles. Now just a few days later, that has been turned around.

So who are these Lakers? Who are these Suns? We should find out Thursday, and see their sense of purpose grow from there.