The Lakers were spear headed by NBA superstar Kobe Bryant who scored 27 points to secure the win for his team. Bryant also made nine rebounds and five assists during the match. Pau Gasol also played an important role by scoring 20 points with 7 of them coming in the closing three minutes of the match. The final score ended with the Lakers scoring 92 with the Celtics lagging behind at 83.

The victory of the Lakers over the Celtics has brought their 19 match winning streak to an end. The game was a first between the two sides after a long gap. Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson could not be any more delighted with his team’s win as it was his one thousandth victory for the team as coach. This has been a milestone for the 63 year old coach.

Jackson has an impressive record as coach with a thousand wins against 423 losses in a total of seventeen plus seasons. He has coached the Chicago Bulls as well. With his thousandth victory he surpassed Pak Riley to become the fastest coach to have hit the thousand mark.

Jackson was recorded as saying “Here we are, a game that’s been pointed to since the schedules came out,” before the match began. The two teams have been long standing rivals and have previously met each other eleven times in the NBA finals.

The history of their matches shows that the Celtics have always had an upper hand on the Lakers but the last match however went in the favor of the Los Angeles team.

Initially it seemed that the Celtics were all set to steal the match from the Lakers who did not seem to be up to par with the performance of Kevin Garnett who put his team on the lead. With Kobe Bryant stepping up his game the Lakers were able to bounce back and defeat their longstanding rivals.