Fans Are Ultimate Winners of Epic Series

BOSTON -- And so it ends, without a single overtime period or defibrillator, restoring normalcy to the surreal and pumping life into the NBA's defending champions. It's quite doubtful the wheezing, battered Celtics will repeat this postseason, what with The LeBronster on vacation and absurdly rested, yet the memories they created with the Chicago Bulls are indelible.

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Like banners in the rafters and parquet on the floor, Game 7 is a Celtics birthright on Causeway Street. They weren't going to sabotage their own legends and lore, not when their predecessors had won 16 of 19 deciding games in various Gardens. And the funny thing about Saturday night was, the current cornerstones, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, didn't have as much to do with survival as a guy who yanks his socks up to his knees and lets his extra-baggy shorts droop to the same area. Eddie House made it his house, joining Brian Scalabrine -- a dead-eye lookalike for Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon in Semi-Pro -- as hot-shooting sparks off the bench. Behind House's big shots in the fourth quarter and 4-for-4 night from Treyland, the Celtics fought off one last Bulls surge and brought finality to two weeks of madness.

Though, if both teams would have liked, they could have kept playing on and on and on, in perpetuity. And we would have kept watching, in awe.

The result was a 109-99 victory that keeps the Celtics in business, even if their staying power will be doubted immediately against an Orlando team armed with Dwight Howard, three days of rest and a fresh sense of unity after eliminating Philadelphia without the suspended Howard. They'll have little time to relax before the Magic series, which begins Monday evening in TD Banknorth Garden. The rest of us can exhale, decompress and ponder what we just experienced.

"We couldn't afford to be tired. No matter how tired we might have felt, our playoff lives were on the line," House said.

"I hope they're a little easier than this in the future," said Vinny Del Negro, who stumbled into quite the funhouse in his first playoff series as Bulls coach.

"This is the most mentally tough series I've had to deal with. When we lost a game, I felt a little too low," Pierce said. "We really didn't expect them to come in and play the way they did all seven games. They really pushed us to the limit. This was a great, great series. Thank goodness we were battle-tested. I told their guys, if they bring back their team next year, they're gonna be tough to beat."

"So many great moments," Chicago's Ben Gordon said. "I honestly believe we could have won this series, but we didn't."

If the finale was comparatively routine, this series still goes down as legendary. It can't be ranked as the best ever because it was a first-rounder and didn't feature the star power of the NBA's most memorable Finals showdowns, such as Magic Johnson's Lakers vs. Larry Bird's Celtics in the '80s. But as a non-Finals series, give me one that was better. Lakers-Kings in 2002? Spurs-Mavericks in 2006? Bulls-Knicks in 1993? Warriors-Mavericks in 2007? In my book, none of those series featured the exhilarating finishes, relentless theater, killer shot-making, physical scraps, fluctuating momentum and yo-yo emotions of Celtics-Bulls in 2009.



It was the series when Rajon Rondo emerged as an elite point guard and electrifying icon, if also dirty to some degree. It was the series when Derrick Rose, all of 20, announced his arrival as the NBA's next big-market marquee player. It was the series when Ray Allen brought back Jesus Shuttlesworth, Joakim Noah delivered a steal and dunk that gave the Bulls their greatest highlight since Jordan, Brad Miller got rapped in the mouth by Rondo and lived to make more free throws and Gordon nearly matched Allen shot for shot in a duel out of Jim Calhoun's Connecticut gym. John Salmons said hello to the sports world. Big Baby Davis and Kendrick Perkins did their best to soothe post-Kevin Garnett trauma. And Pierce was Pierce when he had to be, especially at the end of Game 5. The summary: four overtime games, seven overtime periods, 108 lead changes, 65 ties, five games decided by three or fewer points.

"If I had to just sit back and I wasn't a player and think about these games, this is great for the fans," Pierce said. "Everybody was getting their money's worth."

"Coming into this series, I don't think anyone imagined it to turn out like this," Chicago's Kirk Hinrich said. "We thought we could be competitive, but for the games to be such crazy, back-and-forth action, it's really incredible."

"Maybe years later, I'll think about how great the series was," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "My wife and kids kept saying what a great series it was. But all I can think of is how hard it was. For me, it was about advancing. Really. The players probably have fonder memories. As a coach, it's about winning the series."

The only thing crazy about Game 7 was a rash of horrible officiating. In the first quarter, the crew of Steve Javie, Monty McCutchen and Greg Willard made two errors on the same play: They missed an obvious double-dribble by Gordon, who would make a three-pointer that somehow was ruled a two by the officials. The Bulls asked Javie to review it, and when he didn't overturn it, they made a call behind the scenes to the NBA office. With 5:44 left in the fourth quarter, two hours later, a ruling came in favor of the Bulls, forcing the public-address announcer to break the news to a ticked-off crowd: an 89-83 Boston lead had just shrunk to five points. Oh, but there was more. Late in the first half, Pierce was called for a bad foul, even though he was several feet away when Hinrich tripped over his own feet. Then there was the silliness in the fourth quarter, when House, standing in front of the Bulls bench and screamed at by reserve players, nailed a three, yelled something back -- and was hit with a technical foul while the bench escaped without a penalty.

Long before then, the Celtics had grabbed steady, if not firm, control of the game. House and Scalabrine were the sparks in the first half, combining for four three-pointers that launched a 22-2 run and a lock-down defensive effort. "We turned into the Celtics again. We played defense," Rivers said. "When we got the stops, we could run and get easy baskets." It was left for the Bulls to do some of their own thugging, such as Noah greeting Rondo with a third-quarter takedown. Before the game, Noah had contributed needless chirping -- shut up before a Game 7, kid -- when he lit into Garnett. Just when I was starting to like Noah, just when he showed humility after his SportsCenter-heavy defining play Thursday night, he trashes a future Hall of Famer an hour before the biggest game of his life. Dumb.

"He used to be my favorite player. Not anymore," Noah said, according to a NESN sideline reporter. "I hear the stories ... I'm not a big fan."

Upon hearing the quotes relayed on the local NESN broadcast, Celtics analyst/hopeless homer Tom Heinsohn said, "Go back to France." Noah, of course, is the son of French tennis legend Yannick Noah, though he grew up in New York and played at Florida. Despite the immature burst, he played wonderfully throughout the series, dominating the boards at times. He is symbolic of the growth of a Bulls team that was headed nowhere until the All-Star break, when the embattled general manager, John Paxson, made a trade with Sacramento for Salmons and Miller. In two months, they grew into a serious operation that scared the bejeezus out of the defending champs. The key issue entering the summer is whether they can make financial amends with Gordon and prevent him from signing elsewhere.

"I'm just proud of the way my players fought," said Del Negro, who made his share of blunders but also grew in the series. "As a coach, you're looking for guys who are going to play hard. They cared. The effort was there, the energy, the professionalism. I couldn't be happier or prouder. Give the Celtics credit. They made plays down the stretch, and that's why they're defending champs. We have to learn from this experience. It's only going to make me better as a coach and make the players better."

Said Gordon: "At the end of a day, it's a business. I'm able to put my feelings aside. If there's animosity, the organization needs to be able to do the same thing. We're not kids in the playground arguing over basketball. This is a business, and they need to sit down and figure something out. If there's nothing to be figured out, move on and do something else."

In a series that tapped our imaginations dry, we briefly considered the wildest possible twist: What if Garnett had suited up? What if he hobbled through the tunnel, like Pierce last summer in the same arena and Willis Reed in his legendary Broadway show in 1970, and prompted one of those inspirational highs in sports that cause fans to quake and teams to rally and win? Other than dancing girls popping out of cakes as Miller shot free throws, we'd seen it all in "Bulls-Celtics: Death Match to the Finish." Hell, they could've hauled out the same wheelchair used by Pierce, if need be.

Knowing Garnett's penchant for drama -- not to mention his maniacal, foul-mouthed reactions as he watches these games on the bench -- giving him the green light is akin to tossing bread crumbs to a starving man. Why wouldn't he choreograph his triumphant return, timing it just right so that he, his teammates and Boston fans united as one against the fiery Bulls? But quickly, the Celtics moved to quash that nonsense. Friday, general manager Danny Ainge reminded one and all that Garnett has three years and about $56 million left on his contract and that the team doesn't want him to play the rest of the season, urging him to schedule bone spur surgery on his right knee. And when conspiracy theorists didn't believe Ainge, Rivers spent too much of Saturday also ruling out Garnett for the postseason.

"Sasquatch is going to show up next. I swear, someone is going to spot Kevin on the floor -- and Sasquatch," Rivers said.

What will bother Celtics fans the rest of the playoffs is an innocent quote by Allen. He noted that Garnett isn't practicing but is working out every day at the team facility, which begs a hopeful question: If he's working out, why can't he eventually practice and play? "I see Kev. I know that he gets his workouts in," Allen said. "He's anxious. He's excited. He has the same fire, even though he's not on the floor. That will be a decision where he has to say, 'I'm ready to get up and do it.' As far as I know, it's him being in a suit, which I don't like."

Get used to the suit. He first injured the knee Feb. 19 and hasn't played since March 25, logging only 67 minutes in four games in between. And even if he were to play, please realize that Garnett probably wouldn't make much game impact, given his limited playing time over 2 1/2 months. He was in no condition to storm into this frenetic series of ping-pong drama and perform like, well, Kevin Garnett. Nor will he storm into the Magic series, much as the Celtics could use him against Howard. By the way, Rivers ordered that Magic-related playbooks be placed in each player's car Saturday afternoon.

"When they got here," he said. Before the game. That's how confident he was that they'd advance.

No matter what happens the next six weeks, we left the Garden thinking about the long history of basketball and how, in so many ways, we'd just witnessed something epic. "It felt like some of the games would last forever," Salmons said. Amazing Happened in Boston and Chicago.

"Let's make it quick," Pierce told the media afterward. "Got to go home and catch the Pacquiao fight."

Hard to believe any fight, in a squared circle or octagon, could match this one.