This layup by Ray Allen with 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter during Game Four gave the Celtics a 96-91 lead and slammed the door on the Lakers’ chances for a victory Thursday night.

MCT / Michael Goulding

LOS ANGELES — Perspective, it seems, is everything.

In Boston and all of basketball-savvy New England, the Boston Celtics’ shocking, historic 97-91 comeback win over the Los Angeles Lakers Thursday night was thrilling, exhilarating and certainly memorable.

Fans on this coast see things a bit differently. They see a historic collapse, not a glittering comeback for the ages. Some of the adjectives used by the L.A. Times included revolting, sickening, ignominious. A choke job of epic proportions, wrote one scribe.

What fans of both teams must agree on is the collective amazement they took away from Game Four. How could this possibly happen? How could a Lakers team that seemingly could have named the score in the first half so completely collapse with the game — and their season — on the line? How can a team blow a 24-point lead, a record since they began tracking such things in the 1971 NBA Finals, with a frenzied home crowd in the stands and the league MVP on the court?

The Celtics, quite simply, faced the challenge and attacked it with all their might. Down, 70-50, with 6:05 left in the third quarter, the Celts made a pact to shave the deficit to 10 by the end of the quarter. They got it to two. A stirring 21-3 run for the ages made it 73-71 Lakers with all of the momentum in Boston’s hands.

“I think once we got it down to down one and down three, we felt pretty good. We felt very good,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Once we got the lead, obviously we were thrilled to death.”

Boston received offensive help up and down its lineup, including six 3-pointers from bench leaders James Posey and Eddie House. Pairing those two shooters with Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce was the single most important coaching move of the game.

“That’s our best offensive lineup,” said Pierce. “When you have Eddie, he can extend the defense along with Posey. That’s what we tried to do. The advantage would be our quickness, our ball-handling and our speed. We were able to spread the court and drive the lanes.”

In a coaches meeting at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Wednesday, Rivers said his staff debated a switch to that lineup. His main concern was the Lakers’ affinity for cheating off of Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins. That became a sight Rivers couldn’t watch much longer.

“They were trapping off Rajon and trapping off Perk early,” said Rivers. “I brought it up to our staff and it was probably a 50/50 split. I just did it. When Posey made those shots, I knew from that point on that we were going to have 1-on-1 coverage.”

While that lineup change worked wonders, the added offensive punch was only half the battle. The Lakers shot 64 percent while racing to a 35-14 first-quarter lead. They came back to earth (38 percent) in the second but still led, 58-40. Digging in again in the third quarter was the primary talk at halftime.

“We’ve preached it all year, and we talk about it all the time. For us to win games, it’s going to be the guy that gets the stop and the team that gets the stop, not the guy that makes the shot,” said Rivers.

Garnett summed up the focus more clearly when he said, “Our biggest thing is consistency on the defensive end. We see ourselves as a defensive team that can score. When we got (close) we relied on our defense.”

With the Celtics scratching and clawing on defense and spreading the floor and creating open scoring opportunities, the focus turned to the Lakers. After sparking the first-half rumble, Lamar Odom disappeared. He took one shot in nine third-quarter minutes. Pau Gasol missed three of his four shots. Bryant became the focus, not only for L.A. but for the Celtics.

“They weren’t nearly as aggressive as they were in the first half,” said Garnett. “It just looks like they wanted to get the ball to Kobe and him sort of finish it off.”

The Celtics knew Bryant would come at them hard in the second half and Pierce asked Rivers at halftime if he could guard the MVP. Allen gladly handed over the primary duties, although waves of Celtics were a step behind their captain whenever Bryant got the ball. Bryant shot 2 of 7 in the disastrous third quarter.

“They were determined to not let me beat them,” said Bryant. “I saw three, four bodies every time I touched the ball.”

Bryant did his best to save the day, scoring 10 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter. After House put the Celtics up for good with an 18-footer at the 4:07 mark, Bryant hit two free throws and made a nice drive down the lane. That layup cut Boston’s lead to 89-87. But Allen drove and kicked a pass to an open Posey, who drained a dagger 3-point shot with 1:13 left.

The Lakers closed to 94-91 with 40 seconds left, but this time Allen finished the job himself. He waved off a Garnett pick and abused Sasha Vujacic with a dribble-drive and layup with 16 seconds left that iced the game.

With three seconds left and a convincing 3-1 lead in the series in hand, House went to the line and made one of two free throws.

As the second shot bounced away, a peeved Bryant turned and began to stride off the court before the final buzzer sounded. The move spoke volumes. The MVP knew that this disastrous Lakers’ loss had just moved the Celtics to the brink of a championship.

kmcnamar@projo.com