It took Phil Jackson one (unrelated) question to address the huge elephant in the room: “When Leon ‘Pow’ takes more free throws in 14 minutes than your team does in the entire game…” You have to forgive Jackson for pretending to not to know the young man’s name. The PA guy only bellowed “Leon Poooooowe” on 10 different occasions and the fans didn’t start chanting his name until he went coast-to-coast for a dunk while the rest of the Lakers sat back and watched.

There’s no question that the Celtics are in the Lakers’ heads. They spent the weekend whispering about Paul Pierce’s injury, while Jackson benched Lamar Odom for the entire fourth quarter saying he was “confused.” And now, Leon Powe (rhymes with “show,” Phil) is turning into Marvin Barnes (before the bad stuff started happening).

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The Wall Street Journal went looking for Gino today, that kitschy dancer that appears on the Celtic’s JumboTron when the game is in hand. Well, they found him, and the news isn’t great.

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Every championship matchup brings a friendly wager between the governors and/or mayors of the participants’ cities. Before the Super Bowl, New York bet pastrami and Massachusetts went with clam chowder.

But perhaps the lamest bet of them all is that between California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick for the NBA Finals.

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About a week ago I was talking to a veteran beat guy about Ray Allen, then fighting through an epic slump. I asked if Ray-Ray was hurt. Veteran Beat Guy said no, but then added, “(Paul) Pierce is pretty banged up. But Paul likes pain.”

I was thinking about that during Pierce’s post-game press-conference where there was nary a whisper, not even from the interminably chatty foreign press, as Pierce talked in hushed tones about what he was thinking when he heard a “pop” (his word) in his knee. “Man, it can’t be over like this.”

I was still thinking about Pierce, and how he had worked for 10 long years to finally get to this place and to almost have it taken away by one wayward fall, when the cab I was in almost got smacked by an SUV going the wrong way on a very-clearly-marked one-way street. I made it home around 1 a.m. unscathed and flipped on Comcast to hear Greg Dickerson taunting usually-respectable NBA analyst Ryen Russillo. You see, Russillo picked the Lakers and the Comcast post-game show had gone from its usual Celtic belly-rubs to some kind of contrived WWE nonsense with Russillo playing the role of Roddy Piper, apparently.

Russillo then questioned the seriousness of Pierce’s injury, saying that it was the fastest wheelchair to courtside return in the NBA history. Really? Is this the way it’s going to be for the next few weeks?

It wasn’t even close to the strangest thing that happened last night.

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We here at Boston Daily love free stuff. But there’s only so much free swag we can handle before our hat racks are full and we’ve got more oversized shirts for the gym than we do office-appropriate attire.

If you’ve got season tickets for the Celtics, you know the pain well. The team has launched yet another free t-shirt promotion for tonight’s game.

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Welcome to David Stern’s version of Nirvana. These NBA Finals offer the two best teams in the league, the most possible star power and, for good measure, almost a half-century of history between them. The Lakers and the Celtics don’t need anything else to sell this series to the viewing public, but for all the drippy nostalgia and perfect-for-TV story lines, there is also the promise of fantastic basketball.

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Nearly a week after the Celtics beat Detroit, the NBA Finals will get underway at the Garden tonight. While the prospect of watching the Green beat LA! is exciting enough, we’re really glad things are getting started so it will put an end to the loosely Celtics-related stories in our daily papers.

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I’m no historian, but I’m guessing this is exactly how things unfolded right before the Civil War. One minute, two brothers are laughing and tilling the soil together, the next they start talking about a touchy topic of great importance — namely, Lakers vs. Celtics. Then, boom — suddenly the nation is divided and you can’t get good grits north of Alexandria.

(Check your 8th grade social studies books. It’s all right there.)

In today’s modern-day reenactment, we have legendary Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan firing a shot at ESPN scribe (and local product) Bill Simmons. Apparently, Ryan takes umbrage with a piece that Simmons wrote, in which The Sports Guy dared to claim that Boston vs. LA really isn’t a rivalry at all.

Blasphemy! To arms!

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Now that David Stern’s master plan has culminated in the epic Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals, it’s time to take a massive dip into the nostalgia pool. (Somehow we think the Commish has had those old Celtics and Lakers clips ready to go since last summer. The NBA: Where massive ratings happen.) So, with an eye toward the obvious, the NBA set up a media conference call with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird this afternoon.

We’d be lying if we said we didn’t get goosebumps about the whole thing. Admittedly, we happened to have the exhilarating NBA on NBC theme running through our heads when we got said goosebumps, but still—Larry and Magic! Together again!

Alas, the two legends said pretty much the same things they’ve been saying for the last 20 years. “The cities disliked each other, the teams disliked each other, but we respected each other,” said Magic. Bird added in some obvious analysis on the upcoming series: “I think it’s going to come down to who plays the best.”

That’s the kind of expert analysis you can only get from Hall of Famers. Or, failing that, from me or one of my equally useless (and occasionally unemployed) roommates.

Still, it was fun to hear Larry and Magic wax nostalgic, even if we weren’t brought into the fold. Buried at the end of a long question queue, we didn’t get the opportunity to ask our question, which was tentatively going to be: ‘What’s the most money Charles Barkley has ever owed either of you at one time?’ In case we chickened out, the backup plan was mumbling something about homecourt advantage.

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When we last heard from Celtics rookie Glen “Big Baby” Davis, he was busy running away from hordes of fans at the Natick Collection. When he’s not manicuring his hands, playing basketball, or looking for coats, it seems he has another hobby.

Pizza designer.

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