Can Celtics win Game 7? YEA: Boring, balanced basketball brings banner No. 18

Talk all you want about how dispiriting Game Six was. For me, the lowest moment in the NBA Finals actually came last week, when the Los Angeles Lakers won Game Three on the Boston Celtics’ home court. The Celtics were coming off a record-setting effort by Ray Allen and a scintillating triple-double by Rajon Rondo in a Game Two victory, they were playing at home ? and they blew it. That night, I wrote off the Celtics’ championship hopes.But there is something about this maddening team that keeps luring you back to watch them, because just when you think they’re knocked out, they get back up again, so I will discard my doubts and make my prediction that the Celtics, and not the Lakers, will be the 2010 NBA champion.The Celtics have two assets that will prove unbeatable against the Lakers by the time the clock winds down tonight: They are more boring and more balanced.Boston’s team lacks the glamour of the Lakers. The Big Three cannot equal Kobe Bryant’s star power. Jack Nicholson and Justin Timberlake show up at Staples Center, not TD Garden. Boston seems like a bunch of Jethro Bodines compared with the mansions of Beverly Hills, the beaches of Santa Monica, or the little old ladies from Pasadena. But this has all benefited the Celtics immensely.The Celtics seem to approach each game with a matter-of-fact attitude that allows them to withstand the hype created by the media and fans. If their stumbles during the regular season and postseason have been humiliating, their responses have been praiseworthy. The regular-season losses to the Nets and Sixers ? the lopsided playoff defeats against the Cavs and Magic ? Boston has shrugged off each one to reach the brink of championship number 18, knocking off star-driven squads like Miami, Cleveland and Orlando. With the same one-game-at-a-time approach, the Celtics can prevail tonight.What the Celtics have lacked in glamour, they have made up for in balance. The Big Three plus Rondo have added up to a winning combination in the postseason thus far, and even the bench has contributed. Two days after that deflating Game Three loss, the Celtics evened the series with a victory in which six players scored in double figures (here’s to you, Mr. Robinson). Paul Pierce’s 27 points led four players in double figures in the Game Five victory on Sunday. For all of Phil Jackson’s braggadocio, the Lakers haven’t shown the same depth. Tonight, Lamar Odom, Ron Artest and Sasha Vujacic will show their efforts in Game Six were an aberration.In a supposedly star-powered league that has seen Larry and LeBron, Magic and Michael, the blend of boring but balanced basketball has worked out quite well for NBA teams in the past. The San Antonio Spurs won four titles with this formula – almost as many as Jordan’s Bulls – and the Celtics have won one. It should yield them another tonight.Rich Tenorio is the Item’s sports copy editor.