Lakers-Celtics: It's Just One Game and More...

Yes, this may be just one 'W' but as far as significance goes, this is one regular season game that has no equal for the Los Angeles Lakers.

For the past seven and a half months, the Lakers were haunted by images of confetti and Gatorade. Probably Kevin Garnett's roar resonated in their worst nightmares.

From Game Six of the 2007-08 NBA Finals till now, memories of Boston were flooded with how the Lakers' poor playing caused them to surrender their title challenge in that 131-92 beat down that the Celtics handed out.

Gasol and Odom, in particular, caught much flak for their lack of physical and mental strength to stand up to Garnett and Kendrick Perkins. The Kobe-Jordan comparisons appeared increasingly ludicrous with Kobe detractors having a field day (the most famous one of them all had a blast rapping about it).

Even the Olympic gold medal and his first MVP did not exorcise the ghost of the NBA Finals for Kobe.

When Bynum went down with a knee injury, it was déjà vu all over again.

The Lakers reverted to almost the same lineup that they had during the Boston massacre (except Luke Walton replaced Vladimir Radmanovic) and the announcements around the league were largely the same: Lakers still have enough talent to make it to the Finals without Bynum but that is as far as they would get.

Without Bynum, the Lakers lacked the interior steel to contend with the Celtics or even the Cavaliers. It was 2007-2008 all over again...

Apparently, someone had forgotten that this Lakers' team (sans Bynum) is different from the one that gamely rolled over to the Celtics last season even though the cast remained the same with only Josh Powell replacing Ronny Turiaf as the energy guy and Sun Yue replacing Ira Newble as the forgotten man.

Make no mistakes, on this night, the Lakers sent out the resounding unequivocal message that with or without Bynum, no one was going to push them around.

Yes, it may have been a solitary point, in overtime no less, but the Lakers proved that they could stand toe-to-toe with their most bitter nemesis. No one, not even the Celtics was going to intimidate the Lakers.

Since Bynum went down, Gasol has picked up the slack, becoming a 20-10 machine (averaging 27.5 PPG and 12.8 RPG in the last four games against his season average of 18.1 PPG and 9.2 RPG), cementing his position as Robin to Kobe's Batman.

Perkins and KG found out at their expense that the moniker 'Ga-soft' is already obsolete, as Pau shot 10-14 from the field and pulled down 14 rebounds.

They would, at best, only scratch the image of the skinny Spaniard who was held to an average of 15.2 points per game and 9.6 boards in the NBA Finals.

Make no mistake, the Gasol that limped through an 11 points and eight rebounds performance in Game Six no longer lives here.

How about Odom's clutch pair of free throws that gave the Lakers the victory? THE Odom who was continually criticized for his lack of steel and focus in the finals, sparking rumors of trade for everyone from Shawn Marion to Michael Redd.

While this may be just one game, not quite sufficient to compensate for those in which LO infuriatingly disappeared, for this night at least, LO can silence the rumblings around the grapevine.

No doubt, the Finals are in June not February and the Lakers are by no means a shoo-in to get there. There are still the Spurs, Jazz (if healthy), and Rockets (ditto) to contend with.

Neither are the Celtics definite co-participants either—not if LeBron or Dwight Howard has anything to say about it. While not reading too much into individual regular games, the Lakers have to feel like world beaters tonight.

One thing that this game proved was that the Lakers can hang with the toughest of them all—even without their 7-foot beast. Considering the last game that they played in Boston, this game says a lot.