Powe's 21 power celtics to 2-0 finals lead

At the TD Banknorth Garden Sunday night, the team that brought the NBA "Showtime" fell victim to some serious "Powe-time."

Leon Powe, the Celtics' second-year power forward, scored 21 points in 15 minutes off the bench, pushing his team to a 108-102 victory over the Lakers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Powe nailed six of seven shots from the low post and garnered 13 free throws from his repeated assaults upon the basket.

"He was huge for us," teammate Paul Pierce said after the game. "We know what the Laker bench can bring, but we feel like we have the best bench in this series, and Leon went out there and proved it tonight."

With the Celtics down 20-19, Powe entered the game in the final minute of the first quarter and remained in play to start the second. In the first three minutes of the latter frame, Sam Cassell and Paul Pierce repeatedly looked for Powe down low, and the young forward responded by drawing shooting fouls on Sasha Vujacic, Ronny Turiaf, and Luke Walton. Minutes later, Powe converted a three-point play, giving the team a 10-point advantage.

"We made a concerted effort to get [Powe] the ball in the post in that one stretch in the first quarter, and when he came in the second quarter he responded," said Celtics' Coach Doc Rivers. "I thought that, [in the] first six minutes of the game, we established no post game. We actually had to go to Leon to establish a post game."

Pierce likewise called attention to Powe's early presence in the post.

"We got him the ball -- he had a mismatch, they tried to put a small guy on him. We feel like we can go to the guy. He's proven throughout the course of the year [that] once he posts up, get him the ball. And we've developed confidence that he can get the job done.

Powe also played a major role as the Celtics expanded their lead in the late stages of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. Early in the final quarter, Powe blew by an overmatched Walton for a driving layup that put the Celtics up 85-64. A few minutes later, after receiving an inbound pass from Rajon Rondo, Powe took the ball coast to coast, converting an easy dunk to give the Celtics a seemingly insurmountable 93-71 advantage with eight minutes to go.

After the game, Powe talked about that unusual cross-court drive.

"Doc just told us, if they pressure us, just get it, just be aggressive with it. Make a decision but be aggressive with it because you don't want them to keep pressuring you every time. What I [saw] was a lane and I thought I could get there, and fortunately for me, I got there."

To date, the playoffs have been something of a roller-coaster experience for the young forward. After establishing himself as a mainstay of Rivers' rotation during the regular season and first round of the postseason, Powe saw his minutes decline during the Cavaliers' series. In part, Powe suffered lapses on the defensive end, but the emergence of P.J. Brown also impacted his playing time. Powe played only four of the six games in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons and averaged two points in four and a half minutes per game.

In sizing up the Lakers, the Celtics' coaching staff believed that Powe's size and strength would provide an advantage in the post and thus called his number in Game 1. Powe responded with four points and four rebounds in nine minutes, setting the stage for Sunday night's explosion.

With the Celtics' now only two wins away from a championship, the scene shifts to California, fittingly enough, Powe's place of birth. While relishing the opportunity to play big minutes in front of his hometown crowd, Powe, in light of his playoff experience thus far, promised to take nothing for granted.

"It would be great, but our job is to go out there and take it one game at a time, and you know, not try[ing] to get too carried away. if I get out there, I want to have a good game but also just want to help my team doing the things in the flow of the offense, not trying to have a good game on my own, [not] doing too much."

Green vs Purple..game 1 TONIGHT

Purple and gold versus green and white. 30 NBA Championships among those colors. The Logo, Hondo, Bird, Magic -- all the Hall of Famers who battled at the Garden and the Forum.

At 9 p.m. tonight, none of it matters. The rivalry will exist with the fans and the media, but between the current iterations of these two teams, history gives way to basketball. Because the only way to become part of it is to play.

"I remember my brother always asking me, 'Do you want to be good or do you want to be great?'" Paul Pierce said. "And those are the questions you ask yourself when you go out and work hard each and every day."

"In order to be great, in order to be a legend, you have to win a championship."

As tradition has it, the NBA Finals must start with Game 1 -- which may be more important than usual given Doc Rivers' opponent across the chess board. Lakers coach Phil Jackson -- he of the nine NBA Championships -- is 41-0 in playoff series after taking the first game. And the Lakers have opened all three of their postseason matchups by taking 2-0 leads, but that was when they had home-court advantage. Now, coming in at 4-3 on the road, their goal is to steal one at the Garden.

The Celtics have lost just once at home in the playoffs, but the teams they beat are suddenly relevant again. Like the Cleveland series -- against a post-trade-deadline deal team -- not much can be taken from the Celtics' two contests against the Lakers, because both came before LA's blockbuster deal for center Pau Gasol.

Both the Cavs and the Detroit Pistons had big men who could play off All-Star guards by hitting open jumpers when the defense overextended -- just like Gasol and Lamar Odom can do if the Celtics get too aggressive in trapping Kobe Bryant.

"That's part of what makes them so difficult, their ability to spread the floor with the fours and fives," Rivers said. "Most teams spread it with their ones, twos and threes shooting; they step their fours and fives off and they can spread it with them, and that's different for us."

But the focus for the NBA's top-ranked defense remains, and always will be, the MVP. And unlike LeBron James, who struggled to adjust to the Celtics' doubles off pick-and-rolls, Kobe knows exactly how to break defenses down.

"I look at it as a quarterback, really, because the defenses that I face are always support defenses," Bryant said. "Not necessarily looking at an individual but just looking at where the help is coming from and where my wide receivers are going to be, and when they're going to be open and if I have to call an audible, and if I do, which one."

Kobe's ability to improvise is a great part of what makes the Lakers' scoring punch so explosive (105.9 points per game in the playoffs). But this is far more than just an 'offense wins games, defense wins championships' sort of series -- the Lakers back up their O by D'ing up, posting the highest point differential in the postseason at +6.40 (the Celtics are second at +4.3).

"They're a better defensive team than people give them credit for," Rivers said. "I liken them a little bit to the Showtime Lakers. Everybody saw the flash with the Showtime Lakers, no one saw the grit, and that's the reason they won is their grit. They're a great defensive team."

While the Lakers will have a glaring defensive hole whenever Vladimir Radmanovic is guarding Pierce and Kendrick Perkins will certainly have his hands full with Gasol, the Finals could waver on the Kevin Garnett-Odom matchup.

"Well, my favorite word in this series is going to be 'help'. A guy like that is -- you need as much help as possible," Odom said.

On the other hand, Garnett expects to have his hands full trying to cover Odom and protecting the rim against Kobe and company.

"It's just going to be about knowing what they want to do and taking that away from them," Garnett said.

That's tough to do with so many weapons available. The Lakers' bench -- Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar and Ronny Turiaf -- scored 32.3 points per game during the regular season. Considering the trouble Rodney Stuckey gave the Celtics, the early-to-mid second quarters and early fourth quarters may be opportune times for an LA run.

A win for the Celtics tonight would mean taking care of business, but for the Lakers a win could be a windfall. Though the Celtics finally proved they can win on the road with two victories at the Palace of Auburn Hills in the Conference Finals, the 2-3-2 format of the Finals gives the Lakers a chance to clinch at home if they can split at the Garden.

The allure of the past will hover over this series, but it's still bound to be chock full of adjustments and altered defensive schemes. It's the NBA Finals 2008 -- not 1987 -- and though it might be Pierce, Garnett and Ray Allen's first trip to the almost-promised land, take it from the younger three-time champion: the same things that were true back in November hold true today.

"With all the hype and all the media attention that surrounds the NBA Finals, once you step out there on the floor, it's about one thing and one thing only, and that's who can execute their game plan the best. Whoever does that will win," Bryant said.

New Celtics look to make new history

Like any great Renaissance, this one started in Rome.

It's easy to say now, but if you were in Italy back in early October for Training Camp, you got the feeling something special was happening to the Boston Celtics.

Days before his 30th birthday, Paul Pierce, who spent the spring thinking his Celtics career was over, was born again and about to be redeemed. Ray Allen was in the midst of a sort of homecoming, returning to his New England roots where he starred at UCONN. And Kevin Garnett, once a wunderkind who toiled in relative obscurity, was thrust into the warmth of a spotlight he'd rarely felt (and actively avoided) in Minnesota since becoming the first high schooler drafted in ages.


When the Celtics and Lakers got together in LA at the end of December, Kobe and company brought out the short-shorts to honor the 1980s. But in the NBA Finals, it's the rivalry beings anew with the league's brightest stars of 2008, not 1987.


Long before it was known if Pierce was staying and Garnett and Allen were coming, the trip to Rome was already planned, if for no other reason than international fans knew the name Boston Celtics, even if they couldn't identify anyone who'd played for the team in the last 15 years.

It was a marketing mission long before it was ever intended to evoke campfire kumbaya, or in this case, Campo de Fiori Ubuntu. But the Celtics got the best of both worlds, and it all happened within the shadows of the Colosseum, where ancient gladiators etched their names in history by fighting for their lives.

The stakes for these three players aren't quite the same; their actual lives aren't on the line, but their places in NBA history are absolutely on the line, and the 2008 NBA Finals could be their best shot at the great conquest.

Asked about whether great NBA players need to win a title for validation, Kobe Bryant, the league's best player who'll play chief antagonist this time around, summed it with a pretty fitting analogy. "Depends which club you're talking about. Are you talking about the Jordan Magic club?" asked Bryant. "If you want to get in that club, then you have to win. The other club, you don't have to win. Depends what club you want to get into, the 21 and over or the 18 and under."

The Celtics' three stars are actually in the 30+ club, and the basketball gods are flashing the lights for last call at the Jordan-Magic club. So from Day 1 in Rome, and even when teammates staged voluntary (sort of, but only if peer pressure is to be ignored) September workouts three weeks before camp began, the mission was for the entire roster was clear: capture an NBA title. The unspoken message: Do it while they're still in full command of their basketball faculties, lest they be known as dribbling asterisks; great players who never reached the mountain top, a fate haunting far too many of their predecessors stuck at reliving their glory days at the Barkley-Ewing club.

If the Celtics fail this year? Forget reaching the summit. Some never even see peak in the distance again. Asked at Tuesday's practice if he was sick of practicing and anxious to get started with the games, Allen responded flatly with "Nope", explaining that he intended on enjoying his time in the Finals.

"You allow the moment to take shape and be patient with it," Allen said, the obvious subtext being that this may be his only shot at a ring.

For the Celtics, and especially their veteran stars, patience has been the key, and the timing couldn't have been better. Asked point blank during the before a preseason game in Worcestor, MA if he thought the mix of Garnett and Allen along with himself would have worked five years earlier, Pierce was candid and expressed doubt that the arrangement would have succeeded.

"Man, truthfully? Five years ago? That's hard to say. That's the problem with young players. They're still trying to make their name in the NBA. As bad as it sounds, some of them put winning second," Pierce said. "Even though they might talk about how much they want to win, everybody knows they want to make a name for themselves. So we probably would have been in that position."

Despite having yet to have been asked the question by the media before, it was clear that Pierce had considered the question himself, perhaps having pondered his own basketball mortality after an injury-riddled season that would make anyone rethink their future.

Meanwhile, Garnett initially turned down a draft day trade that would have sent him to Boston, and the Suns and Lakers were in hot pursuit of Garnett throughout the summer. Phil Jackson told the media that the Lakers thought they had the inside track on Garnett, so it's remarkable that they ended up with a Finals date against KG and the Celtics.

"I just think that it's very interesting for our organization. We gave a great chase to Garnett last year and put a lot of pressure on the Minnesota franchise," Jackson said. "That we would end up missing out on that opportunity and still be here in this challenge, The Finals, is really kind of a great story in itself."

The Celtics' epic transformation story was right around the corner, though, and it was THE story of the NBA offseason, so their regular season dominance and presence in the NBA Finals almost seemed preordained. A team of destiny? Perhaps. Seven games (or less) will tell us that. We'll know in two weeks (or less) what fate they make for themselves.

But a matchup with the Lakers, especially when Kobe demanded a trade last summer and he and Pierce were betting who would be traded first? That's just sublime.

Over the last few days, you've read, watched and heard people waxing poetic about the NBA Finals, and in some form or another, they've all be harkened back to basketball days of yore, evoking names like Michael Cooper, Jerry Sichting and Gerald Henderson, to pick a few. TV ratings will be sky-high, team websites will be inundated with requests -- you're doing your part right now -- and tickets will be impossible to score.

In other words, order's been restored to the basketball galaxy. And while much of the league's history is propped up by the exploits of these two franchises with 30 titles between them, the 2008 NBA Finals nod at past, but in reality they celebrate the league's present. This championship series is about the modern-day NBA, and it just so happens to be that the two best teams in the Association are a few old familiar friends (to us) and ancient rivals (to each other).

As much distaste as a Celtics fan may have for the Los Angeles Lakers, would you have it any other way? What's the point of having a nemesis if you can't best them in your moment of glory? The Celtics and Lakers only played in the Finals three times in the 1980s, but you'd swear they did it every year.

Like Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain before them, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird will forever be linked together by the history of the legendary rivalry, but during an NBA conference call on Tuesday, both players went out of their way to explain that while the rivalry is great for basketball, the past is just that, and the 2008 Finals are about Garnett, Pierce, Allen and their Celtics teammates against Kobe Bryant and the 2008 Lakers.

"It really doesn't matter what happened in the 80s, or the 50s or 60s," Bird said, making it clear in his opening remarks that he was uncomfortable about doing the conference call because the Finals should be about the guys who are on the team now. "It's what's happening now. They're on the big stage."

"It really doesn't matter what happened in the 80s, or the 50s or 60s," Bird said, making it clear in his opening remarks that he was uncomfortable about doing the conference call because the Finals should be about the guys who are on the team now. "It's what's happening now. They're on the big stage."

Reporters from across the country continued to hammer away on Bird and Johnson about the past, asking if today's guys really understand the old rivalry. Posed with a similar question after practice, Allen was cautious in answering.

"It's hard to say. The rivalry will take shape when we start to lace it up and get a few games under our belt," Allen said.

Bird echoed Allen's sentiments about the first few games being a learning process, but made it clear that the Celtics can't afford to "waste" any of the early games. Magic, however, is confident that with the rings on the line, the rivalry will take care of itself.

"Trust me, when that ball goes up on Thursday, they'll understand," Johnson said. "It's for all the marbles. It's for everything."

East coast meets West

They are two teams on opposite coasts, but they faced the same problem: getting back to their championship form. At the end of the 2006-07 season, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers had general managers on the hot seat. Celtics GM Danny Ainge was on the hot seat along with coach Doc Rivers after a miserable 24-58 season. That record landed Boston in the bottom of the Atlantic Division and included a franchise-record 18-game losing streak.

The Celtics would hope to land either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant in the NBA draft with possibly a top-two pick. But the Celtics' luck ran out, and they landed the No. 5 overall pick of the '07 draft. It was beginning to look like 1997 all over again, when they failed to land the top pick (and missed out on Tim Duncan).

But then it happened. Early in the first round, a trade was announced between Boston and Seattle that would change the landscape of the Eastern Conference. The Celtics would receive All-Star guard Ray Allen and the 35th overall pick (Glen Davis) in exchange for Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and Jeff Green (fifth overall pick).

But the Celtics weren't done. About a month later, another general manager on the hot seat (Minnesota's Kevin McHale) decided to ship the best player in franchise history (Kevin Garnett) to Beantown for five players and two draft picks, with the most notable being Al Jefferson. McHale unloaded his superstar to his former Celtics teammate, Ainge, and gave him the best assist of his career.

Over on the West Coast, disgruntled superstar Kobe Bryant was demanding several trades. First, it was the trade for Jason Kidd. Then it was a trade for Garnett or Jermaine O'Neal, and then for himself to be traded out of town.

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak was on the hot seat because if he dealt Bryant, he would have traded two of the biggest superstars in Lakers' history (Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant). Bryant demanded a trade publicly. On radio. On YouTube. Bryant also publicly berated his younger teammates (namely Andrew Bynum).

But none of those trades took place, and the Lakers began the season amidst some uncertainty.

But before the 2008 trade deadline, the Lakers pulled off the ultimate coup by landing All-Star forward Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie and Marc Gasol. The trade immediately made L.A. a contender in the Western conference as well as a legitimate title contender. After the injury to Bynum, the Lakers had a huge hole to fill, and Gasol fit the bill.

Boston's "D" vs LA's "O"

Call it the immovable object versus the unstoppable force.

Lost in the wave of excitement about the retro NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the L.A. Lakers is the contrast in styles these two teams represent. When the Lakers have the ball, keep your eyes peeled, because it doesn't get any better than this matchup: the best offense in the game against one of the best defenses of all time.

Boston led the league in regular-season defensive efficiency by a large margin at 96.2. Relative to the league, only two teams in the past 35 years were better defensively, the 2003-04 Spurs and the 1992-93 Knicks (see chart).

Though we can't compare the Celtics to any team before the 1973-74 season because the league didn't track turnovers until then, we can consider this team a worthy successor to the Russell-era mantle of defensive dominance. Feisty D allowed the team with the league's 10th-best offense to roar to a league-best 66 wins.

Boston has kept up that defensive effort in the postseason. In the playoffs, the Celtics again rank first, narrowly edging out Cleveland at 99.4 and lapping the rest of the competition. Though not quite as dominant as the Celtics' regular-season statistic, this 20-game performance is a reasonable facsimile of the first 82 games.

Meanwhile, out on the other coast, L.A. swept to the top record in the West based largely on the league's third-best regular-season offense. But even that No. 3 ranking understates the Lakers' success.

The Lakers ranked fifth in offensive efficiency on Feb. 5, the day Pau Gasol first donned purple and gold. Then they had a little hiccup in late March, when Gasol missed nine games and all but three minutes of a 10th because of an ankle sprain.

Outside of that, Gasol played in 26 regular-season games for L.A. The team's offensive efficiency mark in those games? A staggering 114.0, which would have led the league by a mile had the Lakers kept that up all year; in fact, had they performed anywhere near that mark for a full season, they would have rivaled the greatest offensive teams in league history.

As with Boston, L.A.'s offensive performance hasn't been quite as jaw-dropping in the playoffs. L.A. is third among playoff teams in offensive efficiency at 109.0, standing a whisker behind Orlando and New Orleans.


The Los Angeles Lakers' offense has been highly efficient since the arrival of Pau Gasol.

Still, the 41 games of the Gasol era have produced very impressive results. Los Angeles has played half a season's worth of games with him in the lineup and has posted an offensive efficiency mark of 112.0, which would have comfortably led the league. (Phoenix was first in the regular season at 111.2.) And 15 of those games have come in the crucible of playoff competition, including five conference finals games against an elite defensive team from San Antonio.

So between Boston's defense and L.A.'s offense, we've got quite a showdown ahead of us. Rarely have two teams had such overwhelming strengths clash.

But it's not the very first time a great offense has met a great defense. Which brings us to these questions: What happens in such impacts? Does the defense win the day? Or does the offensive team's high skill level overwhelm?

Yep, it's time for a history lesson. Let's take a look back in time to see what happened in recent playoff series when great offenses and great defenses clashed and the matchup was at least somewhat even on paper:

San Antonio vs. Phoenix, 2005 Western Conference finals
This is probably the most extreme example of such a matchup to date. The 2004-05 Suns were the fourth-best offensive team of the past 35 years; the Spurs, as the chart above shows, were the fifth-best defensive team. As far as offense versus defense battles go, this was an epic.

Unfortunately, two factors got in the way of a great series. The first factor is that for Games 1 and 2 (two narrow home losses for Phoenix), the Suns didn't have guard Joe Johnson because of a nasty facial injury. His absence somewhat reduced the team's offensive firepower right at the time it faced its greatest test. Second, Phoenix's No. 17 defense was no match for San Antonio's No. 8 offense, and the Spurs layupped their way into the Finals in five games.

Verdict: Win for the defense

L.A. Lakers vs. Detroit, 2004 NBA Finals
This battle pitted a potent Lakers offense against one of the best defensive teams of all time, the 2004 Pistons. Though the Lakers were "only" second in offensive efficiency, that mark came with Shaquille O'Neal missing 15 games, Kobe Bryant missing 17 and Karl Malone missing 42 -- obviously, at full strength they were a force with which to be reckoned. Similarly, Detroit ranked only second in defensive efficiency for the season but was No. 1 with a bullet after its midseason trade for Rasheed Wallace.

This turned into one of the biggest upsets in recent history, as much for the magnitude as the outcome. Nearly every prognosticator said L.A. would roll to the title; instead, the Pistons used their suffocating defense to crush the Lakers in five games.

Though Malone's injury in the Finals certainly played a part, score another for the D.

Verdict: Win for the defense

Dallas vs. San Antonio, 2003 Western Conference finals
The 2002-03 Mavericks were one of the best offensive teams in recent times, featuring Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel. They had tied for the league's best record in the regular season with San Antonio, a team that was the polar opposite -- with Tim Duncan and David Robinson, few teams have ever defended the interior better, and the Spurs easily were the league's top defensive team.

Once again, defense reigned, and once again the offensive team had an excuse -- this time, the knee injury suffered by Nowitzki after the Mavs had stolen Game 1 in San Antonio. With its best player sidelined, Dallas lost all three games on its home court while averaging a meager 85.3 points.

Verdict: Win for the defense

L.A. Lakers vs. San Antonio, 2001 Western Conference finals
The defending-champion Lakers coasted through the 2000-01 regular season before turning it on at the end. Again, they finished "only" second in offensive efficiency, but that was with Kobe missing 14 games, Ron Harper 35 and Derek Fisher a whopping 62. Meanwhile, the Spurs rolled to the West's best record behind a defense that was No. 1 in efficiency, with the Duncan-Robinson duo serving as its cornerstone.

That should have set up an epic battle in the conference finals. Instead, it was one of the most lopsided series in league history. Finally at full strength, L.A. blasted the Spurs in four games by a total of 89 points en route to its second consecutive title. Though San Antonio's inability to score played a role, L.A.'s offense also had the upper hand.

Verdict: Win for the offense

Indiana vs. L.A. Lakers, 2000 NBA Finals
Sure, they had Shaq and Kobe. But believe it or not, L.A.'s first Phil Jackson-led championship team ranked first in defensive efficiency with the younger Shaq patrolling the middle and the likes of Fisher, Harper, Robert Horry, Rick Fox and Brian Shaw on the perimeter.

Meanwhile, it was the guys from the heartland who had the league's top offense -- an efficient mix led by sharpshooters Reggie Miller, Jalen Rose and Rik Smits. And in the Finals, that offense was even better than it was in the regular season, rolling up 106.7 points per game against an L.A. team that had given up just 92.3 for the year.

Nonetheless, the Pacers couldn't contain the Lakers at the other end, and L.A. prevailed in a sneaky-tough six games. But in the offense versus defense battle that's the framework for this story, score it for the O.

Verdict: Win for the offense

Chicago vs. New York, 1993 Eastern Conference finals
The 1992-93 Knicks were, to that point in history, the best defensive team of the post-merger era (see chart), winning 60 games and earning the top seed in the East. With Pat Riley coaching the likes of Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason and current Celtics coach Doc Rivers, it's pretty easy to see why.

In the conference finals, those Knicks ran into a Chicago team that had the league's second-best offense; plus, it had some guy named Michael Jordan whose minutes it could ramp up in the playoffs.

True to form, the Knicks held the Bulls to eight points below their season average. But the Knicks' offense went off the rails and cost them the epic series, even though they won the first two games and held home-court advantage. The Bulls prevailed in six tough games in one of the best series in recent memory, paving the way for the third of Jordan's six championships. Nonetheless, this is another triumph for the D.

Verdict: Win for the defense

Chicago vs. Portland, 1992 NBA Finals
The 1991-92 Bulls won 67 games with a dominating offensive attack led by Mr. Jordan, of course. In the Finals they ran up against a Portland team that also was wickedly talented but did most of its damage at the defensive end, where it finished a close second in defensive efficiency.

Portland's defense did the job, holding Chicago to 104 points per game -- right at the Blazers' season average on D and six below Chicago's. But, as with the Knicks in '93, the Blazers' offense didn't come through. A Blazers team that scored 111.4 points a game in the regular season didn't hit that mark in regulation once, and averaged 96.7 -- nearly 15 below its regular-season average -- for the series.

Verdict: Inconclusive

Boston vs. Detroit, 1988 Eastern Conference finals
The 1987-88 Celtics were the fourth-best offensive team of the past 35 years, helping them roll to 57 wins and, seemingly, another Finals showdown against the Lakers. But the upstart Pistons had other ideas. They had the league's second-best defense, which would help them become the league champion Bad Boys the next two years.

This season was the Pistons' first step, as they knocked out Boston in six -- and in this case, the defense absolutely was the reason. Boston averaged 113.6 points in the season but cleared the century mark just once in six games against Detroit, and needed double overtime to do it. In fact, Detroit gave up nearly nine fewer points a game to the Celtics than it had during the regular season.

Alas, the Pistons couldn't quite get past the league's second-best offense, Los Angeles, in the Finals, losing in seven after dropping the final two games by a combined four points.

Verdict: Win for the defense

Philadelphia vs. Boston and L.A., 1980 Eastern Conference finals and NBA Finals
The NBA was basically a three-team league in 1979-80: The Celtics, Lakers and Sixers won 61, 60 and 59 games respectively, but no other team cleared 50. L.A. and Boston won with offense, finishing first and second respectively in offensive efficiency thanks to Magic and Bird, but the Sixers were the opposite -- a defensive juggernaut that ranked first on that end of the floor.

In the playoffs, the Sixers came away with a split. In the conference finals, Philly's D prevailed, absolutely suffocating the top-seeded Celtics. Boston was held nearly 20 points below its season average in the series, even failing once to clear the century mark in an era when reaching 100 points per game was routine.

But they didn't do as well in the Finals against L.A. The Lakers got their numbers, Magic went off in the clinching Game 6, and L.A. had its first of five titles for the decade.

Verdict: One for the defense, one for the offense

Golden State vs. Washington, 1975 NBA Finals
This oldie but goodie was another battle of No. 1s. Washington had the league's No. 1 defense, captained by Wes Unseld, and had just beaten the league's other 60-win team, Boston, in the Eastern Conference finals. All that stood between them and the title were the lowly 48-win Warriors, who had the league's No. 1 offense behind Rick Barry but weren't considered in the Bullets' league. Besides, Washington had just taken out the No. 3 offense in the past round -- this wasn't expected to be much different.

As we all know now, it was much different. Golden State swept the Bullets in four in one of the biggest upsets in league history, though the culprit was more an implosion of Washington's offense than anything the vaunted Warriors attack accomplished.

Verdict: Inconclusive

The One That Could Have Been
There's one other matchup of No. 1 offense vs. No. 1 defense that nearly came to pass -- 22 years ago, we nearly had exactly what we have in the 2008 Finals.

The 1985-86 Los Angeles Lakers easily were the league's top offense, and their 62 wins led the West. That year's edition of the Boston Celtics sported the league's top defense, and their 67 wins led the entire league. All was set for an epic showdown between the league's past two champions … right up until the part when the Houston Rockets upset the whole apple cart in the Western Conference finals, winning in five games.

So instead, we get the matchup now. There's no Magic and no Bird, but we have Kobe and KG and another gritty Boston team against a flashier bunch from L.A.

And as the above examples show, it seems the Celtics have a decent shot at thwarting L.A.'s attack. The scoreboard on the 11 series shows six for the defense against just three for the offense, with two proving inconclusive. The top-notch defensive team also won six of the 11 series outright.

Of course, that kind of meta-analysis can't account for the smaller variables in any individual series, but it's useful to consider nonetheless. The prevailing opinion has been that this is the Lakers' series to lose, even with Boston's home-court advantage. But if Boston has as much success shutting down the Lakers as its defensively dominant predecessors have had in series against highly ranked offenses, its odds of bringing home a title may be much better than the consensus perceives.