LOS ANGELES (AP) -Andrew Bynum finally had to call it quits in the second half against Boston, telling Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson that he couldn’t go anymore.
“He just said, ‘You’ve got to take me out. I can’t run,”’ Jackson said. “It was obvious at that point that he couldn’t. He had some swelling in the back of his leg, and we’ll have to work on that.”
Bynum started Game 6 against the Celtics and had two points and four rebounds in nearly 16 minutes on Tuesday night. He had fluid drained from his right knee for the second time after Game 4 last week.
“With the lead that we had, I didn’t think it was necessary (to stay in). I felt I was hurting the team,” he said. “We had a big lead, a couple rebounds I couldn’t get to. I couldn’t really pick my leg up. I felt a couple of twinges so I just backed off.”
Bynum said he would get more treatment on Wednesday and then see how his knee feels for the deciding Game 7 on Thursday. After the season ends, he’ll have surgery.
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BLAME THE STARTERS: Ray Allen said he and the other Boston Celtics starters were to blame for their blowout loss.
“We had a conversation at the end (of the game) on the bench and a little bit in the locker room just now and we take complete responsibility,” he said. “We just put us in such a hole early. It affects our bench. We didn’t give them any great rhythm, any great chemistry. Each individual tried to make the home run play early.”
The Celtics trailed 28-18 after one quarter and never made a serious run as the Lakers built the biggest lead of the series.
Allen finished with a team-leading 19 points.
The Lakers were better in nearly every category, with more rebounds, steals and blocked shots than the Celtics.
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DUNKIN’ SHANNON: Shannon Brown created back-to-back highlights for himself in the third quarter.
First, Kobe Bryant fed him on a fastbreak dunk that gave the Lakers a 20-point lead. Then Brown followed with a one-handed dunk off an assist by Pau Gasol.
“Great call, great pass,” Brown said. “Caught them off-guard, snuck backdoor and Pau threw it perfect.”
Brown is known for his high-flying dunks that draw oohs from the fans and often make the sports highlight shows. But these two came on the NBA’s biggest stage.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “I really can’t put it in words, but I know it got us going. Kept our momentum for us.”
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VETERAN INFLUENCE: Rajon Rondo might have had a very different NBA career if he had ended up on a team other than Boston Celtics coming out of Kentucky.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers credits Rondo’s development to being around veterans Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce.
“Most young guys come in the league, they don’t even know what a routine is,” Rivers said Tuesday night before Game 6 of the NBA finals. “Where if you ask a veteran what he does on game day, he can probably tell you to the second every step that day until the game starts what he’s going to do.”
Now in his fourth season with the Celtics, Rondo had a triple double in their Game 2 win against the Lakers, and he has the second-most in team history with five, trailing Larry Bird who had 10.
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PHIL WANTS TEAM PLAY: Lakers coach Phil Jackson knows how much offense his club generates off Kobe Bryant. What he wants is the rest of his team to step up.
“There’s too much individual action,” he said before Game 6. “There’s got to be more team play on the offensive end.”
Bryant took twice as many shots through the first five games of the finals as the next highest player on Los Angeles, Pau Gasol.
“We looked for him too often, he didn’t get going, and there was a need for the team to give him the basketball,” Jackson said about the Lakers’ Game 5 loss. “We talked about that in our pregame today.”
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g on to star in the NBA finals, Kobe Bryant and Rajon Rondo took part in the Top 100 camp.
Eight players in this series are alumni of the National Basketball Players Association’s camp, which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the University of Virginia.
In its 17th year, the camp gathers some of the top high school juniors and sophomores in the country. There are also current and former NBA players who will take part in the camp’s mentoring and development program.
Boston’s Glen Davis and Shelden Williams also were campers, as were the Lakers’ Lamar Odom, Josh Powell, Jordan Farmar and Luke Walton.
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