You will hear multiple Game 7 statistics tonight, so let’s get the most important one out of the way: Three other series have gone to seven games with the 2-3-2 format – Pistons/Lakers in 1988, Knicks/Rockets in 1994 and Pistons/Spurs in 2005. The home team won each of those series.

While the most immediate comparison of Celtics/Lakers is Pistons/Spurs in 2005, this year’s Finals have resembled the 1994 Finals more than any other seven game series in history.

If the Lakers win tonight, their Finals path will essentially mirror that of the ’94 Rockets. Both the Lakers and Rockets first had to go through the Jazz and Suns, and before winning Game 7, the Rockets split the first two games at home, lost two of three at MSG, and then won the next two at home. Sound familiar?

The resemblance between these Finals and the ’94 Finals is not because Glen Davis is a lost cousin of Anthony Mason or because Doc Rivers was on the Knicks roster. Really, it’s because both series have depended on centers more than any other position. Although offense was the story of Game 1 and Game 2, the past four games have effectively been defensive struggles largely anchored by each team’s front lines. In the 1994 Finals it was the same; no team scored more than 93 points in any of the seven games, and Patrick Ewing set an NBA Finals record with 30 blocks in the series.

But whereas in ’94 each team revolved solely around Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon, in this series, the Lakers and the Celtics rely on their guards and forwards. The Lakers have Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol while the Celtics arguably now have the “Big 4” with the addition of Rajon Rondo. So how are these Finals so similar? When Game 7 concludes tonight, the winner of the game and, more, the entire series, will have been determined by the play or non-play of Andrew Bynum and Kendrick Perkins.

Bynum

Bynum’s knee has been a source of concern since he injured it in 2008, and many will say that the Lakers were not nearly as competitive in their 2008 Finals matchup against the Celtics because Bynum was out for the series. Now, with Bynum playing on a re-tweaked knee, albeit very well, his injury has become prominent again. Although Bynum put up a strong 21-point, 6-rebound, 7-block performance in Game 2, there was no way the Lakers were going to top Ray Allen’s historic shooting night. One recent L.A Times article was titled: “With Bynum out, Celtics are drooling at the opportunity,” and T.J. Simers wrote the same thing after Game 4:

“Without Bynum in Game 4, the Lakers were just another scrambling NBA team unable to withstand home-court pressure and aggressive drives to the basket… We’re already getting a glimpse of what NBA life would be like without Bynum. He said his knee swelled after Game 3 and had not recovered sufficiently to allow him to compete at a high level in Game 4.”

Bynum gave the Lakers 31:38 minutes in Game 5 but his lack of mobility became painfully evident when the Lakers couldn’t stop a single Celtics player in the second half. With each game, whether Bynum plays a few minutes or 30+, whether he skies for alley-oops or is severely limited, he has proven just how valuable he is to the Lakers now and in the future. As Simers continued in his article, a scenario where Chris Bosh comes to the Lakers in exchange for Bynum departing should not entice the Lakers.

Perkins

Perkins has been producing slightly below his season averages these Finals, but his presence on the floor is irreplaceable. With his overall size, he is the biggest guy on the court; he defends, runs the floor, and generally makes the right decisions with and without the ball. For all the genius behind Tom Thibodeau’s defensive schemes and the credit that Rondo and Kevin Garnett get, Perkins anchors the Celtics D. No one on the Celtics protects the rim as well, and Big Baby and Rasheed Wallace will become automatically less effective without the Lakers having to think about Perk in the lineup. The Celtics were so desperate that Shelden Williams was playing crunch-time minutes and with the devastating reports on Perkins’ knee, Brian Scalabrine was activated for tonight’s game. Uh-oh.

If the Celtics lose tonight, Celtics fans will forever say it was because Perk was not in the lineup. And if that is going too far, the ‘What-if?’ question won’t disappear for a long time. The same goes for the Lakers. Fans won’t ask, ‘What if Kobe played better?’ like they did in 2008, because Kobe has been nothing short of remarkable (part of his better play is because Bynum is such a threat down-low even with a tweaked knee). They will ask “What if Bynum was healthy?” though, and if they win tonight, the key difference between 2008 and 2010 will be No Bynum versus Bynum.

The pedigrees of Bynum and Perkins will never equal those of Ewing and Olajuwon, and while both are centers, they are not the “centers of attention” in this series. But when Game 7 concludes tonight, they will have truly proven to be the most valuable players in every sense of the word. One team won’t forget that.

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