Green Giants

Raised on the glory of the Celtics dynasty, I boast a prominent green gene somewhere in my sports soul. So while my mind and heart can feast on wonderful and wondrous images—Roberts stealing second base, Big Papi going deep, Brady fading back to pass, Vinatieri lining up a kick—I, on occasion, have been waking up in the dark of the night in a cold sweat. And all I could see was Antoine Walker, he of the infamous butt wiggle, hosting another ill-advised three-pointer and, of course, clanging it.

How the Celtics got from Antoine's ignominy to Kevin Garnett, on the fabled parquet floor, channeling his inner James Cagney and bellowing "Top of the world, Ma!" is one of the most improbable sports odysseys in a city that has come to specialize in them. The Celtics' brain trust had an entirely different plan for this season. The team tanked the last one to put itself in the best position to draft one of two coveted rookies, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, around which a team, perhaps even a championship team someday, could be built. It was the same plan that had failed more than a decade earlier, when the prize was Tim Duncan—and once again the Ping-Pong balls came up snake eyes, or whatever Ping-Pong balls do when your dream craps out.

Thus was born the Big Three—the wheeling and dealing that teamed two perennial all-stars with the petulant Pierce. And looking back now from the perspective of the team's 17th championship, after its total dismantling of the favored Lakers, it's easy to forget that many of us considered it a dubious proposition. We saw a playoff team, no doubt—and one that, given the drought, might be enough to satisfy our basketball itch. But was it an aggregate with championship mettle. Both Garnett and Allen were on the wrong side of 30. Garnett was certainly NBA royalty, a ferocious rebounder and defender, but he was not regarded as a climb-on-my-back superstar in the Larry Bird or Magic Johnson mold. Allen was viewed as a one-dimensional player, a sensational shooter in the mold of Reggie Miller, but without Miller's resume of big-game heroics. Indeed one would have to scour Allen's career, if you don't count his University of Connecticut days, to see if he had ever played in what could be termed a big game. Even if Garnett and Allen proved to be all one could hope, waiting for them in Boston was Pierce, a mercurial star in the "me first" mold whose attitude was viewed by many as suspect—toxic enough at times that he became the designated fall guy at the 2002 world basketball championships in Indianapolis, when the United States finished a mortifying sixth.

Don't let anybody tell you they saw what was coming. About the best anyone envisioned was a playoff berth and, in the weaker Eastern Conference, a chance to sneak into the Finals against some Western Conference powerhouse. And believe me, we Celtics fans would have been delighted to settle for that. Even though the regular season proved to be so much better than anyone could imagine—a league-leading 66 wins, the NBA's best road record, the NBA's best defense, a 2-0 sweep of the Lakers in the regular season, a stunning Texas sweep of San Antonio, Dallas and Houston—nobody was ready to crown this Celtics team.

And rightfully so, if the early playoff rounds were any indication. The woeful, sub-.500 Atlanta Hawks looked too fast and too athletic for the Celtics, pushing Boston to seven games. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were too big and strong and again the Celtics had to rely on home-court advantage in a seventh game. Some of the potential flaws, considered long ago and discarded, now resurrected themselves. Garnett had emerged as the team's emotional leader, but he wasn't always willing to take charge on the floor. Some fretted he was too selfless to win. Allen couldn't make a basket, leading to speculation that either his legs or his nerves were shot. Only Pierce seemed capable of raising his game to the next level.

So even after an impressive series win over favored Detroit in the Eastern Conference Finals, all the smart guys picked the Lakers to romp in the Finals (and I saw no reason to quarrel with that conventional wisdom). Everybody kept repeating how L.A. had the best player in the world, the reigning NBA MVP, in Kobe Bryant; had the complementary stars, in Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, that even Michael Jordan had needed to go all the way; had the deeper, more talent bench and, of course, had the ultimate Zen master, Phil Jackson pulling the springs. All those notions unraveled in this 2008 Finals, most conspicuously Tuesay night in Boston's 131-92 title-clinching romp.