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Boston Celtics defeat LA Lakers 109-96. The last time we saw the Lakers and Celtics play was that awful Game Seven where Ron Artest's 20 points helped save the Lakers at home to win their second consecutive NBA Championship.
In their first meeting of the season we see the Lakers trying to come back from an inexplicable five-point loss at home to the Sacramento Kings and the Celtics trying to recover from a 34% shooting effort in an 88-71 loss against the defenseless Phoenix Suns.
Well the Celtics seemed to exorcise their shooting demons since Friday shooting just over 60% from the field and over 50% from behind the arc with Paul Pierce leading the way with 32 points and three three-pointers. Ray Allen did his thing weaving his way through the Lakers porous defense drowning 21 points with three three-pointers. Even Nate Robinson chipped in with three three's and 11 points in his 14 minutes of play that helped the Celtics come back in the third quarter.
One stat of note: the Celtics won the battle of the assists 29-10. The Lakers played their offense as if every player was an island on their own putting up bad shots after bad shots. Rather than going strong to the bucket down the stretch, Pau Gasol preferred settling for a contested jumper at the elbow. Of course this led to easy transition buckets for the Celtics while Gasol and Andrew Bynum just casually trotted back to the defensive end of the court.
Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 41 points and tried to single-handedly give the Lakers the victory, but the Celtics defense did a good job of forcing him to difficult shots. The rest of team? Mere spectators not worth mentioning really.
TONIGHT'S ACTION
Milwaukee Bucks at LA Clippers. 7:30 p.m. FS Prime Ticket, AM 980 KFWB.
