Lakers guard Kobe Bryant tries to dish off as the Celtics’ Kendrick Perkins fouls him during the first half of last night’s Game Three of the NBA Finals at Los Angeles.

AP / Mark J. Terrill

LOS ANGELES — When Paul Pierce was blossoming into a high school All-American, wearing the green and white uniform of the Inglewood (Calif.) Sentinels, he dreamed of nights like last night.

Pierce would be gliding around the court, powering his way to the hoop and hitting long jump shots with equal efficiency. He’d be playing into the heart of June for championships with all the world watching, just like he did when he was seven, eight and nine years old, fighting for room in front of his uncle’s small TV set in a home that sat just a mile from the old Forum.

The team Pierce dreamed of playing for, of course, was the Lakers. He’d ball-handle and pass like Magic Johnson, shoot like Byron Scott and go hard to the rack like Jammin’ James Worthy.

The Celtics, the Larry Bird-Kevin McHale-Robert Parish Celtics, were the enemy.

Life changed the equation for Pierce. He became a national-level recruit and chose to leave Inglewood and play for Roy Williams at Kansas. When Celtics president Rick Pitino made him the 10th pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, Pierce was back wearing green and white. Now Boston was his new home and the Celtics were no longer the enemy.

Pierce’s 10 seasons with the Celtics haven’t been easy ones. He played on too many losing teams, took too many shots in meaningless games and was even stabbed in the neck, face and back at a Boston nightclub early in his Celtics’ tenure.

But last night Pierce wasn’t worried about any of that. He was home, playing in front of his mother, Lorraine, and loads of friends from the neighborhood. The bright lights and heavy stakes couldn’t be higher. His Celtics could be closing in on the franchise’s first NBA title since 1986. That the Lakers happen to be the team standing in the way of his dream is just an odd circumstance.

“This means everything. It’s a dream," Pierce said after he scored 28 points to lead Boston to a 108-102 victory in Game Two on Sunday. “It’s a dream for me to go home and play in a place where I grew up, against a team I grew up with, with the Boston Celtics, with the opportunity to win an NBA championship. Couldn’t have scripted it any better.”

Like all great players, Pierce has earned his stripes. Last weekend he spoke of his early days at Inglewood High, where he spent hours and hours in gyms and on blacktop courts near the Forum, the Lakers’ home until they moved downtown to the Staples Center nine years ago.

Pierce recalled workouts before school where he’d pick up teammates who didn’t really want to pull themselves out of bed, hop in his beat-up Datsun two-door and play one-on-one, full-court.

“When you look at it, it was kind of nasty because you went to class all sweaty at the time,” Pierce said. “But, hey, that’s what you had to do back then to get to this point.”

“It helped me get a work ethic and it helped me sacrifice. Who wants to wake up at 5:30 to go to the gym? I know nowadays I don’t. But when you’re a kid who had dreams and tried to develop a work ethic, those were the things that you wanted to do. Any chance you got, you wanted to get in, and that’s pretty much where it all started.”

Besides finding that work ethic that would polish his game and make him follow in a line of hoop stars from Inglewood that includes Scott, Reggie Theus and Cheryl Miller, basketball also helped Pierce stay out of harm’s way.

“I didn’t really see too many gang members out or bad things happening at 6 a.m.,” he said.

Pierce has always seemed to enjoy his trips home. He’s averaged 27 points and nearly seven rebounds in nine career road games against the Lakers. He hit for 33 points in the Celtics’ 110-91 win at the Staples Centers against the Lakers on Dec. 30.

Pierce has emerged as the single-most important player in these NBA Finals. The Lakers, quite simply, haven’t stopped him. He shook off a third-quarter knee injury to hit three 3-pointers and finish with 22 points in Game One. After two days of rumors about his knee’s strength, Pierce responded with 28 points (4-of-4 threes) to lead the Celtics to another win and a 2-0 series lead.

This week, Pierce is hoping for more big nights against the Lakers. The only difference is that this time he’s playing in his hometown, wearing green and white and playing for an NBA championship.

kmcnamar@projo.com