The Boston-Los Angeles rivalry, nothing more than black-and-white footage from the '60s and TV highlights of players wearing short shorts in the '80s to young hoops fans, remains titled toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Celtics are 9-2 against the Lakers in the finals.

They missed their first crack at closing out the series in Game 5, but didn't miss on their second swing, running the Lakers out of their gym.

Bryant, the regular season MVP, finished with 22 points.

Garnett and Allen were All-Stars in other cities, stuck in Minnesota and Seattle, respectively, on teams going nowhere. But brought together in trades last summer by Celtics general manager Danny Ainge, a member of the '86 Celtics champions, they joined Pierce and formed an breakable bond, a trio as tight as the club's lucky shamrock logo.

With Garnett scoring 17 points and Pierce adding 10, Boston built a 23-point halftime lead, and unlike Game 2 when they let the Lakers trim a 24-point lead to two in the fourth quarter before recoveirng, the Celtics kept coming in waves.

They pushed their lead to 31 in the third quarter, and with Boston still up by 29 after three quarters, plastic sheets started going up in the Celtics' locker room in preparation for a champagne celebration.

Bryant started 4-of-5 from the field, but he missed seven shots in a row and finished 7-of-22. Everywhere he went, L.A.'s No. 24 ran smack into a wall of Boston defense as high as the Green Monster a few miles away at Fenway Park.

"Defense," Rivers said before the game. "Is what we do."

In the second half, Celtics fans chanted "You're not (Michael) Jordan" at Bryant, who will have to wait for his fourth title and first without former teammate Shaquille O'Neal. The Lakers, who stole Pau Gasol away from Memphis in a mid-season trade to help Bryant, will have the all summer to think about what went wrong.

No team had to work harder for a championship than these Celtics, who were playing in their record 26th postseason game. They were pushed to seven games in the first round by Atlanta, another seven by Cleveland and then took care of Detroit in six to win the Eastern Conference title.

They entered Game 6 of the finals slowed by injuries as Pierce, Kendrick Perkins (shoulder) and Rajon Rondo (ankle) were less than 100 percent. There was also uncertainty surrounding Allen, who stayed behind in Los Angeles following Game 5 after his youngest son became ill.

But just as they had while winning 66 games during the regular season, the Celtics got plenty of help from their bench as P.J. Brown, James Posey, Leon Powe and rookie Glen "Big Baby" Davis came in and contributed.