LOS ANGELES – There was a crowd gathered to hear the losing coach talk because there’s always a crowd when the Celtics and Lakers play one another. Regardless of record, playoff positioning or actual potential, this game will always mean something even if no one really believes they will ever face each other again with this current constellation of stars in place.

“Don’t you guys know that we’re not that good anymore,” Doc Rivers cracked with a slightly sarcastic edge before explaining how his team managed to simultaneously rally from a 15-point deficit and blow a five-point lead in the closing minutes.

Let the record show that the Lakers beat the Celtics 97-94 after Kobe Bryant did what Bryant does and Andrew Bynum proved that physics and talent always win in this game. The second half was filled with brilliant basketball with both teams trading shots, elbows and momentum swings and the Celtics were admirable in defeat.

Rajon Rondo had one of his best games in the rivalry, scoring 24 points and dishing out 10 assists. Brandon Bass played an inspired game, limiting Pau Gasol to 13 points on 11 shots and scoring 17 points of his own. But a losing locker room is always full of laments and for Bass it was an open jumper that he couldn’t make that would have given his team the lead. 

“It’s frustrating. I had an open look,” Bass said of his last-minute shot that he left short. “I really wanted to come through. I really, really wanted to come through and make that shot.”

Rondo was subdued in dark sunglasses, protecting an eye that had been poked by Portland’s Marcus Camby on Friday. He took 18 shots, made 10 of them and was an active presence from the opening tip. “I love him when he’s aggressive,” Rivers said. “They tried to play the sag-tag defense off of Rondo and overall I thought he made them pay for it.”

In another year, Rondo’s performance could have been looked at as a good sign, a prelude to another June meeting in the finals. But no one’s thinking about that now. The Celtics are once again battered and thin, reeling from the sudden loss of backup big man Chris Wilcox. The Lakers are having creative difference over an offense that barely resembles the structured triangle years.

There was a feeling of finality over this era of the best rivalry in the NBA. Five years ago, the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Later that year, the Lakers added Gasol and the race was on. They met twice in the finals with each team winning once and if not for Garnett’s knee injury in 2009, they might have played another one.

They were built to beat one another from Metta World Peace to Rasheed Wallace and the O’Neals, but times have changed. The Celtics will likely be broken up, although not as soon as some may have thought. The Lakers may be trading Gasol, although the only thing certain about this trade season is the uncertainty and lack of traction.

“I’m just going to say this and I guarantee the Lakers feel the same way,” Rivers said before the game. “We know there are favorites in the East and there are favorites in the West and there should be. We haven’t deserved to be one and neither have they, yet. But you’re zero-zero when the playoffs start and if both teams are healthy, you just never know.”

True, you never know but that’s a thin layer of hope and the Celtics are a far different team than they were in 2008. Garnett is playing center now and the first backup big man off the bench is a 26-year-old rookie journeyman. Rivers wants them to play faster to counter their lack of size. It’s an adjustment for a team that is so set in its ways, but it’s the only way they can counter the likes of Bynum and Gasol and make up for the lack of rebounding.

“We feared that he may have a big game with our lack of size,” Rivers said. “We wanted to stop the others. Bynum was phenomenal. Give him credit. Going into the game we thought there was a chance of that but we still [could] win the game.” 

They couldn’t, as it turned out. Bynum scored 20 points and had 14 rebounds. Bryant made killer shots down the stretch, but it was Bynum who scored the game-winner with a hook shot over Garnett. That was Bryant’s call incidentally.

“Kobe came up with that play,” Bynum said. “He said, ‘They’re not going to be able to know what to do.’ I was able to get deep position and go to work.”

Even with a center who insists he’s a four and an undersized power forward up front, the Celtics almost pulled it off. When they were good on Sunday, they were very good. They erased a 15-point lead brought on by a molasses-slow first quarter in which even attempting a shot was a chore. Garnett made all three of his, but the rest of the Celtics missed 18 of their 21 shots. Most of the second half was a blueprint for the way they have to play the rest of the season.

“We are going to have to be more athletic,” Rivers said. “We’re going to have be tougher. Overall that game played out on the floor pretty well.”

The Celtics left Staples angry, but determined. They feel that they’re close to gaining that long-sought rhythm that has eluded them this year, but they’re still hanging on by a thread with their injuries and depth. The Lakers move on as well, with one foot in the past and another in an equally uncertain future.

Both teams will likely look much different the next time they play and a new chapter in a novel that never ends will have to be written.