Celtics give other teams hope, too

When the clock neared midnight on Tuesday and the last seconds were squeezed from the NBA Finals, Kevin Garnett — a 13-year veteran, 11-time all-star, former most valuable player, and no one's fool — made his way through the confetti and the noise to prostrate himself at midcourt of the TD Banknorth Garden and kiss the leprechaun-in-the-circle logo of the Boston Celtics.

There are several ways one could look at this, but Garnett, in the emotion of the moment, in the sweet fulfillment of his longing for a championship, couldn't be faulted.

What it was, indeed, was an impressive reminder that competitive desire is powerful. If you get the right players together for the right reason, even the best of them can lay themselves out prone on occasion for the good of the cause.

"It's like that bully that you go to school with every day (and) you know you're going to see him as soon as you walk through the doors," Garnett said, speaking of his long, frustrating wait for a championship with the Minnesota Timberwolves. "Then one day, you say, 'This is going to stop today.' You walk in ... and (knock him) out. It's like getting rid of the bully."

Garnett would have been happy to free himself of the bully during his time with the Timberwolves, would have gladly crawled through the madness to kiss the lupine logo in Minneapolis. The same goes for Ray Allen and the 11 seasons he spent seeking a shot at a championship with Milwaukee and Seattle. If Glenn Robinson had been able to hit an eight-foot baseline jumper in 2001, Allen might have gotten the chance that season instead of the 76ers.

Then there is Paul Pierce, whose fortune it was to join the most storied franchise in NBA history during a span in which it would record 11 losing seasons in 14 years. The nadir may have arrived in the 2006-07 season, when the once-proud Celtics appeared to tank the end of the schedule, finished with just 24 wins, and were looking for salvation from general manager Danny Ainge, whose previous five years on the job didn't lend much promise to that hope. Without a lot of fuss, Pierce requested that the team either get some better players or allow him to leave in a trade.

So, how did all of that conspire to lead the Boston Celtics to their 17th title on the 17th day of the month, to get happily drenched in that rain of green confetti, and what, if anything, can other teams in the league learn about how to get there themselves?

Someone asked coach Doc Rivers that very question Tuesday night. Even after the team traded the fifth pick in last year's draft and two players to get Allen from Seattle, and even after it traded five players and two future first-round picks to Minnesota to get Garnett — even after those two bombs fell — how did Rivers make it work? His answer was canny, and a little world-weary, if you know anything about professional athletes and their usual motivations.

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