With 4:01 left, Doc Rivers made like Carol Burnett and tugged on his left ear.
As the crowd wailed, “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye,” to the Lakers, Glen Davis, Leon Powe and Tony Allen replaced Paul Pierce [stats] , Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.
The Big Three attempted to leave the floor, but the bear hugs that awaited them from Kendrick Perkins [stats] , P.J. Brown and Sam Cassell had blocked traffic leading to the bench. Referee Joe Crawford pushed them all off the floor to resume play.
The Celtics [team stats] were about to win the NBA-record 17th title in franchise history with last night’s 131-92 Game 6 victory over the Lakers. The 39-point gap was the largest winning margin in a clinching game in NBA Finals history.
But Rivers remained stoic, his arms crossed.
Danny Ainge, the director of basketball operations who had been on the verge of tears when his picture was put up on the Jumbotron, was now being hugged to death by Garnett in the middle of the huddle.
Rivers, barely a year after pulling into the dock with a 24-win team, stood with his arms crossed to the end. But his calm was finally washed away when Pierce came up from behind and doused him with a bucket of red Gatorade. The coach turned and hugged his captain.
Someone passed him a cell phone and it was Gov. Deval Patrick, offering congratulations instead of the reprieve that would have been the only reason to call last year.
Most of all, Rivers thought about his late father, Grady Rivers, who passed away in November.
As was the case in Los Angeles when he was asked the question last week, Rivers teared up last night.
“Well, I thought I was going to get through this,” he said, stopping for a moment. “It was the first thing I thought of. I thought of my wife, my kids, my mom. My first thought was what would my dad say, and honestly I started laughing because I thought he would probably say, if you knew my dad, ‘It’s about time. What have you been waiting for?’ So that was my first thought.”
His second one undoubtedly had nothing to do with the Lakers, who, after cutting the Celtics’ lead in this series to 3-2 with a narrow Game 5 win at Staples Center, barely merited an afterthought last night.
From the rowdy fan in a Kobe Bryant jersey who was escorted out of the arena by security at halftime to the LA star himself, who shot a miserable 7-for-22 for his 22 points, the Garden was no place for a Laker in Game 6.
Not only did the Lakers shoot 42.2 percent, including a 23 percent second quarter when the Celtics broke the game open, they also lost their spirit early. They were outrebounded by a 48-29 margin and turned the ball over 19 times to the Celtics’ eight.
The Celtics won almost all of the telltale races for loose balls and rebounds, and before long the lethargy was evident in the Lakers defense as well.
The Celtics blew this one out of reach with a pair of murderous second-quarter runs (11-0, 9-0), hit their first 30-point lead in the third, and coasted home with some wild numbers.
After 22 years of waiting, the Boston Celtics have won their 17th National Basketball Association championship, adding to the 16 that already hang from the rafters of the TD Banknorth Garden and before that, the old Boston Garden.

The Celtics won the game 131 to 92 and won the series with 4 wins over their old rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers' 2.  The game was highlighted by Ray Allen's seven 3-pointers, tying the NBA Finals single game record, as well as the Celtics 18 steals, easily a single game record also.  Paul Pierce has been chosen series MVP.

The season is noted for the biggest single-season turnaround in NBA history as the last Celtics season was considered to be one of the worst in franchise history.