Game 7 of NBA finals today June 17, 2010
Article writer: Peter May. Special to ESPNBoston.com – Twelve years ago, Phil Jackson saw his days in Chicago coming to an end and called the Bulls’ final title drive “The Last Dance.” Twenty-two years before that, the rock group The Band gathered for a final performance at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and called it “The Last Waltz.” Martin Scorsese made the concert into a terrific movie two years later.
Thursday night in Los Angeles, the Boston Celtics will try to win their 18th championship in what some are calling “The Last Roundup.” The times, they are a’ changin’. The head coach may be going. The top assistant is going. The starting shooting guard is one of a number of free agents.
[+] EnlargeDoc Rivers
AP Photo/Reed SaxonDoc Rivers’ top assistant, Tom Thibodeau (right), is headed to Chicago next season; will Rivers himself be back in Boston?
Game 7 of the NBA Finals may be the last time we see Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen together as Celtics. It may be Doc Rivers’ swan song. It’s a moment we all knew was coming, but coming when it does has been an added bonus for the coaches, players and fans of Celtics Nation. Most figured they’d be watching another team from the Eastern Conference against the Lakers.
No one was overly wistful or waxing nostalgic on the eve of only the third Game 7 in the NBA Finals in the past 22 years — and the first for the Celtics since 1984. But the Celtics all know that this could, indeed, be the last roundup, much as Jackson sensed that there was an imminent breakup of his 1998 team. He was right. After the Bulls beat Utah, Michael Jordan retired (sort of), Scottie Pippen arranged a deal to Houston, Dennis Rodman departed for Los Angeles and Jackson left for his Montana ranch, turning the flotsam and jetsam that remained over to Tim Floyd.
These Celtics may not be in for such a drastic diaspora, but changes certainly will be made. The Big Three will be a year older and have more wear and tear from a season of 106 games. That’s perhaps what led the injured (and frustrated) Kendrick Perkins to say Wednesday, “I’ll probably never get this opportunity again to even make it back to the Finals.” He could be right.
Asked Wednesday about this being a potential last-time-together occasion, Rivers said, “I think we should always view it that way. You can never take for granted a season, a game, especially a Game 7 of a Finals. You never know if and when you’re going to be back in that position. And so when you get in that position, you want to take advantage of it.”
What Game 7 also means is a chance for these Celtics to put themselves in the same category as other Boston title teams by winning a second championship. That would match the Cowens-Havlicek-White group that won two in the 1970s. (Hondo, of course, had already won six in the 1960s.) It would also put them one shy of the Bird-McHale-Parish group that won three in the 1980s. Read full article
