The Boston Celtics put together the series’ first back-to-back winning efforts as they won Sunday versus the Los Angeles Lakers in Boston, 92-86.

Despite a 38-point effort from Kobe Bryant, the Celtics simply came up with the big buckets when they needed to. Paul Pierce led all Boston scorers with 27 points, by far his best game of the series. In addition, Kevin Garnett had a monster game with 18 points, 10 boards, five steals and a pair of blocks.

The Lakers’ advantage in this series from the very beginning has the play of their frontcourt, yet minus a stellar Game 1-effort L.A.’s big men are not getting it done.

Defense doomed the Lakers in this one as they seemingly couldn’t come up with stops when they need them most.

That said, Phil Jackson can’t feel too bad about only getting beat by six points. The series now heads back to L.A. for Game 6 on Tuesday and Game 7 on Thursday, if necessary.

Of the 25 finals that have been tied at 2-all, the winner of Game 5 has won 19 of them. Let’s not forget though that Jackson is 47-0 all-time in playoff series in which the team he coached won Game 1, as the Lakers did. Something has to give.

NBA 2010 nba finals, boston celtics, los angeles lakers, kobe bryant, paul pierce, kevin garnett