2008 NBA Finals - Celtics Defeat Lakers

Three Party triumph: KG leads, Allen scorches and Pierce takes MVP

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

BOSTON -- Kevin Garnett got the cover of the new Wheaties box, Breakfast of Champions edition, which was getting passed around the bowels of the New Garden long before the final buzzer, all thanks to the most laughable score in the history of championship clinchers.

Ray Allen took a sharp first-half poke in eye, when he was already playing with the weight of a family crisis on his shoulders, yet rebounded by tying one NBA Finals record for hitting triples and breaking another.

BOSTON (AP) -With Russell and Havlicek sitting courtside, and Red surely lighting up a victory cigar somewhere, these Boston Celtics returned to glory like the great teams before them.

Dominant in every way.

On a new parquet floor below aging championship banners hung in the rafters two decades back, the Celtics won their 17th NBA title and a first one - at last - for Paul Pierce , Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen - their Big Three for a new generation.

After 22 long years, the NBA has gone green.

Lifted by ear-splitting chants of ''Beat L.A.'' early and cries of ''Seven-teen'' in the closing seconds by their adoring crowd, the Celtics concluded a shocking rebound of a season with a stunning 131-92 blowout over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 on Tuesday night.

2008 NBA Finals: One of the Most Memorable

by Jorge Castillo

The NBA Finals solidified a few things when all was said and done; here are a few.

Team ball + defense = championships.

The buzz going into the just-completed NBA Finals between the sport's two most storied franchises was at a level unseen before.

Kobe and KG were to take the reigns from Magic and Larry Legend. It was supposed to be another epic Boston-LA series.

But it wasn't.

In the end, the Celtics were simply a much better team and it couldn't have been exemplified better than in the Celtics' 39-point rout to clinch their 17th NBA title and first since 1986.