LA Lakers defeat the Boston Celtics in overtime

The Spaniard Pau Gasol is certainly not the LA Lakers' most loved player by the fans, but once in a while, even those who wished the franchise had transferred the Spaniard during the preseason, have to be thankful for having him around. It was the last shot of overtime of an 88-87 win by the LA Lakers over the Boston Celtics. Paul Pierce shot would had given the Celtics a win, but the ball bounced off the rim. Still, the game was not over, there was little over a second left and Ray Allen had the ball in his hands. That's when Gasol made that key last second block that gave the Lakers an important win on the road, and builds up a bit of momentum to face the New York Knicks.

Paul Gasol finished the night with 24 points and 14 rebounds to lead the Lakers at the Boston Garden. Shooting guard Kobe Bryant scored 27 points and 5 rebounds to improve the Lakers season record to 15-11. But Perhaps we should also focus on Andrew Bynum clever performance under the baskets. The Lakers big man finished the night with 16 points and 17 rebounds to put an end to a two-game skid.

This was certainly a though game for the Boston Celtics, because it really puts a hold to the good rhythm the Celtics had been building. Consider for a moment that the Boston Celtics had won their last 5 straight games and had won 9 of the last 10 matches, finally coming back from what had been a very under-par start this season. Usually the Boston Celtics' big three are very fine shooters, capable of making the basket when they need it most. Then again, this wasn't the case against the Lakers. Sure enough, Ray Allen finished with 22 points and Kevin Garnett had 12 points and 12 rebounds for Boston, but their aim was very off. Garnett was 6 for 23 from the field and Pierce was 7 for 18, including a clean-look jumper at the end of overtime.

So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the Celtics head coach, Doc Rivers was a bit disappointed with his team's overall performance. "I thought this was an awful game," said Rivers in the postgame press conference. "If we had won, it would have been an awful game that we won. Give them credit -- a lot of that was defense. But I thought a lot of it was self-inflicted." And it certainly was. There is no way to work around the numbers: 6 of 23 and 7 of 18 from the field are certainly not numbers worthy of players that are bound to end up in the hall of fame.

Still, it would be up to Paul Pierce to lead the Celtics' effort last night. But even Pierce, the better Celtics, wasn't at his finest. Pierce finished with 18 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. Those are great numbers. He was also the one who could have finished off the game. He had a chance to win the game at the end of regulation and again in overtime. The first shot he picked up his dribble and got trapped with Allen open in the corner. His second shot simply rimmed out. Stay tuned for more NBA action at betias.com