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LOS ANGELES — No one dreams of Game 3.

Imaginations envision more. They envision this.

From children on driveways to NBA veterans already adorned with championship jewelry, there is an appreciation of moments rare and special. There is anticipation of times like these.

It’s Los Angeles Lakers. It’s Boston Celtics. It’s Game 7. And it could be even more.

“Historic, when you’re talking about these organizations and these teams, what they stand for, the pride,” Lakers forward Lamar Odom said. “This is what you envisioned when you were a kid playing in your backyard. This was what it was all about.”

As if all the significance possible to be loaded on to one night of basketball had been piled on one winner-take-all game, tonight’s championship game — just the third NBA Finals Game 7 in 22 years — could be remembered for more than the one to decide the 12 series between the NBA’s greatest rivals.
Will coaches be back?

The game could mark the end of an era. Lakers coach Phil Jackson remained noncommittal about whether tonight’s will be his final game. Already holding a record 10 championships as the coach of the Chicago Bulls and Lakers, on Tuesday, he passed Scotty Bowman for the most postseason wins in the history of American team sports.

“You know, I still get up and say this is probably the last time I’m ever going to do this,” Jackson said. “I can’t imagine myself going through this again. It’s not only a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of stress and pain and anxiety. But it’s something you get acclimated to.”

The game also could be the last for Boston coach Doc Rivers, who will consider returning to Orlando to watch his children compete. The Celtics in general rely on 34-year-olds Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. The fourth seed, with a win they would have negotiated the toughest road to the championship since the sixth-seeded 1995 Rockets. The Celtics know better than most they cannot expect many more chances.

“I think we should always view it that way, I’ll put it that way,” Rivers said. “You know, you can never take for granted a season, a game, and 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.”
‘It’s for everything’

The game could even go a long way toward defining Kobe Bryant’s legacy among the all-time greats. A championship would be his fifth, matching Magic Johnson’s collection and moving him within one of Michael Jordan. It would avenge the 2008 loss to the Celtics and give the Lakers a win after four Game 7 setbacks to their rivals.

“You can’t really enjoy the moment when you’re in it in terms of what’s happening,” Bryant said. “You’ve just got a job to do. You go out there and you do it, and then you can look back at it after the fact.”

There was a time, however, that Bryant was driven to take his place among the greats.

“He was very concerned about his mortality and how history is going to look at it as a basketball player,” Jackson said of Bryant’s early years in the NBA. “At this time, I don’t think it’s in the back of his mind that he has to catch Magic or he has to catch Michael or anything else. He wants to win. It’s what the effort is worth for him to do what he has to go through to play this game.”

For now, the game is simply a final step for one of the teams one win away from a championship.

“It’s all out,” Garnett said. “It’s for everything. You save nothing, you leave nothing.”

If knowing all that were not enough, there is also an understanding that there is even more at stake.

“This is what the NBA wants,” Boston’s Glen Davis said. “This is what the fans want. This is what the world wants — Game 7, Lakers-Celtics. It’s history.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/7057503.html

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