Ron Artest has been here before.

Not the NBA finals, but that doesn’t matter. He’s been to Boston. He’s played against the best in the East, and knows the difference 3,000 miles can make. He’s learned it’s not always about finesse, that a performance doesn’t have to look smooth to translate into a “W.”

A win is still a win, even if the star player shoots 10-for-29 and the team hits just 2 of their 15 3-point attempts.

It was the kind of win the Lakers had in Game 3 against the Celtics Tuesday night at the TD Gardem to give them a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

“I’ve played in the East before, so I already know these Boston, Detroit-type wars where it hurts to play,” Artest said following the Lakers 91-84 victory. “You’ve got to continue to want to feel the pain because in the East, it’s really like grind-out basketball. But luckily I’ve been here before.”

The game wasn’t pretty. But it wasn’t supposed to be this late in the season with a championship on the line. The Celtics blew an early 12-5 lead in the first quarter and trailed 52-40 by halftime.

Then, it was the Lakers who scored just 15 points in the third quarter and watched their edge dwindle to six. By the fourth quarter the Celtics were on the verge of stealing back their advantage. They got within one on two occasions and threatened to stage a fourth quarter comeback like they did in Game 2.

Between the whistles and the missed shots, it was 12 minutes of stop-and-go basketball that could have changed its course with one basket. With the Celtics down by just four late in the game, the Lakers wanted to rein it in.

But that’s when Los Angeles players remembered a question from Derek Fisher.

“Fish asked a question, ‘Before the game even started, if we were to fast-forward it and it’d be the fourth quarter and we’d be up by four, would we take it?’” Shannon Brown recalled. “We were like, ’Yeah, of course we would.’ That was the scenario and we just came out and we handled our business and got the win.”

The Lakers win over the Celtics will be headlined by the 11 points Fisher scored in the fourth quarter (16 total) or Lamar Odom’s 12-point redemption for his dismal showings in Games 1 and 2. What gets lost is the fact that it took Bryant 29 attempts to score as many points (1-for-7 on 3’s) or that Artest hit one field goal for the second game in a row.

In the end, it was the Lakers who scored seven more points than the Celtics.

“I don’t think he was off. That’s just a team thing,” Artest said of Bryant’s shooting performance. “If one guy misses, they have a stat that says ‘team percentage,’ ‘team field goals.’ He made shots, missed shots, but as a team we missed some, make some together.”

Odom echoed Artest’s team mentality, saying, “It’s about the Lakers and not Lamar.”

The finals are about the five players on the court figuring out a way to get it done by any means necessary. It doesn’t have to look like a highlight reel and the box scores can appear choppy.

Prior finals experience is not required for a player to understand what it takes to win in Boston. 

“The only thing I learned now is when I was younger, I thought I had to score 20 points instead of letting everything come and happen,” Artest reflected. “So today I scored two points, big steals, just execute, still ready to shoot, and we win. I wish I had known that when I was younger in the East, but the East is tough.”