Also see: Pt. 1
8) NHL Stanley Cup Finals Game 5, Penguins @ Red Wings, June 2
The NHL was having a great postseason that seemed to be resurrecting the league from the shadows. Now they had the marquis matchup of the Titletown Detroit Red Wings against the anointed Savior of the league in Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Detroit managed to go up three games to one in the series, though, and were poised to clinch the Stanley Cup in Game 5 in front of their home fans.
Early on in the game, the Penguins made it clear they were not going to let it be easy. Marion Hossa got a nice feed in front from Sid the Kid and found the far corner of the net to put Pitt on the board eight minutes into the game. Then as Adam Hall drove the puck to the Detroit net, the Red Wings Niklas Kronwall scored an own goal trying to push the puck wide of the net. The puck deflected off Hall's skate and was credited to Hall for a 2-0 Penguins lead in the first period.
The Penguins were fortunate to have a 2-goal lead because as the game progressed, the Red Wings began to dominate play as Penguin goalie Marc-Andre Fleury faced a five-man firing squad in red. First Darren Helm scored on a long wrister for Detroit to make it 2-1 early in the second period. Looking to tie with 2:50 left in the second, the Wings broke to a two-on-one rush as Mikael Samuelsson was cruelly denied by Fleury with a full extension left pad stretch that seemed impossible. This kept the Pens up 2-1 going into the third.
It was the third period where the Red Wings really turned up the heat. Sensing the Cup in their grasp, the Wings started the period by firing 12 shots on goal (countless others narrowly went wide or hit a post) before Pittsburgh could manage a single one. Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk teased the home fans early in the period with a shot off the crossbar that sounded the foghorn and stopped play but alas was not a goal. Datsyuk though would get another chance on the power play only minutes later, deflecting a high-speed pass through the five-hole of Fleury to tie the game at two with 13:17 left. After a few more frantic saves by Fleury, Brian Rafalsky gave the Red Wings their first lead with a far angle shot that the Penguins screened goalie couldn't reach with 10:37 remaining.
Suddenly, the overmatched Penguins were playing against the chants of "We want the cup!" as well as a better hockey team. With one minute left in their season, the Penguins finally were able to keep the puck in Detroit's end after they had pulled Fleury and added the sixth skater. Maxim Talbot found a wraparound angle and tried to slip it past the Wings goalie Chris Osgood, he was denied by the left pad, but the puck remained right in front of the crease and Talbot scored on the second effort with just 34 seconds remaining to tie the game at three and silence the crowd. It was only the Penguins fourth shot of the period against the Red Wings 14 shots but it was good enough to force overtime.
After all this drama, the game was barely half over.
The overtime would feature more of the same play with the Red Wings firing 13 shots on Fleury while Pittsburgh only managed two. At this point, Fleury may as well have been filming an instructional video on how to save every conceivable type of shot. If you're scoring at home, that's Red Wings 27 shots, Penguins 6 over a 40-minute span of Finals hockey. And yet the Penguins lasted into a second overtime.
A funny thing happened in that second OT. While neither team could still find the net, the Penguins outshot the Red Wings, 8-7. This was the first time in any period the Wings had been outshot. Osgood was suddenly being forced to make as many great saves as Fleury (who committed highway robbery with his glove save on Dan Cleary in this period) as the action remained furious on both ends. When Detroit went on the power play in the period's final two minutes, the Penguins held them without a shot.
As the weary competitors battled through a third overtime, Pittsburgh's Petr Sykora was feeling his oats enough to tell NBC reporter Pierre Maguire that he felt like he was going to score the winner, a la quarterback Matt Hasselbeck in Lambeau field in 2004.
Nine minutes into the third overtime, the Penguins got the biggest break of the game. Jiri Hudler of Detroit lifted his stick and incidentally cut the face of Rob Skuderi, incurring a four-minute penalty. Quickly, Sykora found a space to fire a shot wide of the net. Moments later, Evgeni Malkin found Sykora open again. This time he didn't miss, and the Penguins escaped a silent Joe Louis Arena with a victory. The Cup remained boxed up. Sykora was, in the words of Maguire, "a man of his word." Not to mention the otherworldly performance of Marc-Andre Fleury, who had saved 55 shots by the time it was over, while Detroit's Chris Osgood only had to save 28.
Final score: Penguins 4, Red Wings 3 3OT
The Red Wings would finally clinch the cup in Pittsburgh two nights later in Game 6 by a 3-2 score and even there, they needed a last-ditch save by Osgood to secure the win.
Other NHL Honorable Mentions
- Eastern first round Game 7, Flyers 3 @ Capitals 2 OT, Jeoffrey Lupul goal wins it, Alexander Ovechkin scores tying goal in second period for Caps
- Western second round Game 6, Stars 2, Sharks 1 4OT, great saves by Marty Turco (61 saves) and Vladimir Nabokov (53 saves), Stars win and clinch series
7) NBA Finals Game 4, Celtics @ Lakers, June 12
The Association salivated over the possibilities when the green and yellow teams with all the tradition and rivalry in their past managed to find their way back to the finals for the first time since 1987. It was because they knew a game like this would be possible.
This was essentially a home-court series as the Celtics outplayed the Lakers in Boston, only to find Kobe Bryant take over down the stretch of Game 3 to salt away a Laker victory to cut the series lead to 2-1. Game 4 saw the Lakers come storming out of the gates eager to tie the series. Running the Celtics ragged up and down the floor, the Lake Show was in full effect early on. The only strange thing was that this was Lamar Odom's show, not Kobe's. Odom started 6-of-6 from the field as L.A. went ahead 35-14 after one quarter. The 21-point advantage marked the largest point differential after one quarter in NBA history.
When Sasha "The Machine" Vujacic hit a three from the wing midway through the second quarter, L.A. led 45-21, upping the lead to 24. It was at this point of the game where ABC announcer Mike Breen asked his colleagues on the air, "Which has been more of a struggle for Boston, offense or defense?" Analyst Jeff van Gundy replied "Unfortunately, you can't pinpoint it. It's both."
Boston answered with a 12-0 run to cut the lead in half before the Lakers found one last push at the end of the half. This was capped by Jordan Farmar's crazy running three off glass at the halftime buzzer to bring the lead back up to 18 points. Kobe Bryant had only scored three points on 0-4 shooting and yet the Lakers were rolling.
While the Celtics chipped into the lead coming out of the locker room, by the six-minute mark of the third quarter, L.A. had restored it to a 70-50 advantage. Boston responded with a Pierce layup and an Eddie House three. Then came perhaps the most symbolic moment of the series. Up by 15 points, league MVP Kobe Bryant tried a fadeaway jumper from the wing on eventual series MVP Paul Pierce and the truth moved right along with Kobe and blocked his shot point blank. Not only that, Pierce managed to keep the ball in play and turn it into a Celtics fast break, just the way the old Celtics preached.
Over the next five minutes, Pierce would elude three Lakers in mid-air for a tricky up-and-under reverse layup, Pau Gasol would miss an easy dunk, and Boston reserve P.J. Brown would slam one down emphatically to end the third quarter. He had good reason to, the Laker lead was now down to two. All in all, a 21-3 run for Boston to make the score 73-71 going into the fourth.
Early in the fourth, the Celtics draw even several times with L.A., but by this point in the game, Kobe Bryant had finally found his scoring touch and answered each tying bucket with a driving layup, a 20-foot jumper or a breakaway slam. Still it wasn't enough to pull away, just to keep that small margin in tact.
This ended when Eddie House drained a jumper from the baseline to break the seal. Boston had their first lead of the game at 84-83 with 4:07 to go. The Celtics had gone 2-8 on the road in the postseason up until this point, while the Lakers were a perfect 9-0 at home. A 24-point Celtic comeback in Staples was quite hard to fathom.
Ray Allen would make a tough reverse layup to elude Gasol, and Kevin Garnett hits a pull-up in the lane that incredibly made it a five-point lead. In the final two minutes, it was the Lakers trying to come from behind, but Boston wouldn't allow it. Repeatedly, they drained dagger-like shots to bring their lead back to two possessions.
In the final stanza, Boston led 94-91 with 40 seconds left and the ball. The Lakers needed an elusive stop for the chance to tie. Boston killed the clock and put the ball in the hands of Ray Allen, the man Pierce and Garnett (the other two thirds of the "Boston Three Party") both agreed should be the man taking the final shot in a big playoff game. Allen drove through the lane making mincemeat of Vujacic and eluding Gasol at the bucket — exposing their wretched, halfhearted excuses for defense — with ease, to put up an effortless lefty layup off the glass to ice the game. A joyous Pierce hopped and danced around in the backcourt, looking every bit the green leprachaun on the Boston logo, sans the cigar.
Moments later, the game's final seconds would bleed away, completing the Celtic victory. The 24-point deficit Boston faced is the largest any team has ever overcome in the 61-year history of the NBA Finals. It was certainly a game, and a feat worthy of classic Celtics vs. Lakers lore. Just as fans remember Don Nelson's lucky bounce in '69, Gerald Henderson's steal in '84 or Magic Johnson's junior sky hook in '87, they will remember the comeback of '08. There was one thing that meant more to eventual MVP Pierce than the comeback, though, and he was excitedly screaming it all the way through the tunnel back into the locker room. "One more!"
Final score: Celtics 97, Lakers 91
Boston now held a 3-1 lead in the series, which would prove to be too much for Kobe and the Lakers to overcome, as Boston clinched the title at home in six games.
Coming soon: Games No. 6 and No. 5
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