2008 NBA playoffs

LOS ANGELES - The Celtics had a chance to put the Lakers down in a place from which no team has ever recovered: a 3-0 disadvantage in the Finals. And they blew it. Simple as that.
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Once again, the Celtics out-rebounded the Lakers. And on yet another night, Boston proved a tougher, more physical team than Los Angeles. But smarter?

No. Definitely not.

In the postgame interview room, Phil Jackson referred to his eternally undiscouraged shooter, Sasha Vujacic (7 of 10, 20 points) as "a rockhead." Actually, with Tuesday night now in evidence, the term seems more apropos in describing the Celtics, starting with their best, most talented and fiercest player.

That would be Kevin Garnett. He played like a rockhead; there's no other way around it. I'm not talking about him going six for 21. That happens to the best. I'm talking about how he went 6 for 21. Garnett is supposed to be the dominant big man in this series. But he shot two free throws Tuesday. Two. And you can't blame the refs for that one.

Garnett is 7 feet tall. His wingspan approximates that of a private jet. He's a vastly superior athlete — quicker, faster and stronger — than the guy covering him, Pau Gasol. And yet he insists on spending most of the game floating around the three-point line.

Of course, he's been doing this his entire career, 13 professional seasons spent impersonating a guard. It's never made any sense, and at some level, even Garnett — who seems like an awfully earnest and likeable fellow — has to understand this.

Take this question from the postgame interview room: "It seems like every time you took the ball to the basket something good happened to you or your teammates. Why didn't you do it more often?"

Now consider his answer: "...Hell, if I knew that, I would have done it ... Obviously in the course of a game you try to mix things up ... but for the most part, I watched this game ... But you're right. I probably do need to take the ball to the basket a little more."

Said Phil Jackson: "The second half, they started to figure some things out. They got us off balance in the third quarter."

In other words, after a first half in which Garnett didn't post-up once, the Celtics actually began getting him the ball on the blocks. The first time, he hit a cutting Ray Allen for an assist. Next, he found Kendrick Perkins for a layup. Then he got fouled. Then he hit a jump hook that made Gasol look helpless.

As the third quarter began, the Celtics were down six. Still, it seemed more than that, as the Celtics had only scored 37 in a very ugly half. But that jump hook, which tied the game at 49, seemed to change the game.

Rajon Rondo had already left with an ankle sprain. Paul Pierce was on his way to an abysmal 2 of 14 shooting night. But it didn't seem to matter much. Garnett had seven points and three assists in the third, a quarter the Celtics won by eight. Jackson was correct; it looked as though the Celtics had finally figured out what they needed to do.

And then, just like that, they stopped doing it.

Said Jackson of Garnett, "I just think that Kevin ran out of gas."

Said Doc Rivers of Jackson, "I'm just surprised he didn't whine about fouls tonight."

Asked Kriegel of Rivers, why did you stop going inside to Garnett?

"It just happened," said the coach, searching for an explanation himself. "We didn't want to."

Rivers then spoke of the pressure the Lakers put on Rondo's replacement, Eddie House, and Pierce's foul trouble. Finally, he settled on this: "Kevin went out of the game is the main reason ... that three-minute stretch when he was out of the game was when the game changed. But we really had no choice. He needed a blow, we gave him a blow."

He was referring to the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. Garnett returned to the game with 8:56 remaining. After that, said Rivers, "we just didn't get anything out of him."

Still, I think this misses the point. Where was Garnett for the first two quarters? Hovering around the three-point line, where he of course returned for a good part of the fourth. But why? Even a sportswriter can figure out that's not the best place for him to spend most of the game.

Garnett was two for six with a single offensive rebound in that last quarter. By contrast, Kobe Bryant, who finished with 36, had 10 in the fourth quarter.

I understand that Bryant — who only did what is obligated of a man who desperately wants recognition as the game's greatest — is a much better player than Garnett. "For me it's a simple formula," said Bryant, "just take it to them, just go to the basket."

You'd think the seven-footer would understand this as well. And he does. You can never be too aggressive, said Garnett: "Too aggressive is not even in the vocabulary."

The vocabulary isn't the problem. It's your game.