LOS ANGELES, June 12 (AP) -- In their comeback season, the Celtics saved the biggest one of all for the NBA finals.

Boston rallied from a 24-point deficit and beat the Los Angeles Lakers 97-91 on Thursday night to take a commanding 3-1 lead in this history-rich series and move within one victory of a 17th championship that seemed impossible a year ago.

A rivalry between the league's two most storied franchises - with some of the game's biggest names and biggest moments - now has its biggest rally.

No team had ever overcome more than a 15-point deficit in the first quarter, and although the league doesn't have a record for the largest rally in a finals game, the Celtics staged one that will forever be remembered in the annals of Celtics-Lakers lore.

When the final horn sounded, Paul Pierce, an L.A. kid playing in front of family and friends, doubled over in exhaustion and exuberance. The Celtics, the team he stuck with through 10 years, including a 24-win season in 2006-07, had done the impossible.

"We sucked it up,'' Pierce said. "We said we weren't going to back down.

"At the end of the third quarter I looked up at the scoreboard and told the fellas, 'We just have to go out there and compete and let the chips fall where they may.'''

Pierce scored 20 points, Kevin Garnett had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Ray Allen had 19 points as Boston's Big Three, thrown together last summer by general manager Danny Ainge to revive a franchise accustomed to hanging banners from the rafters, put the Lakers on the brink of a summer vacation.

It took an epic comeback to do it, and now the Celtics can reclaim their place atop pro basketball with a win in Game 5 on Sunday night in Los Angeles.

No team has ever recovered from a 3-1 deficit in the finals.

"It can always happen. We aren't counting on that statistic,'' Pierce said. "We want to take care of this on Father's Day.''

Kobe Bryant scored 19 points on 6-of-19 shooting but the league's MVP couldn't rescue the Lakers when they needed him most. Lamar Odom had 19 points - 15 in the first half - and Pau Gasol, whose addition in a midseason trade was supposed to give the Lakers their final piece to complement Bryant, had 17 points and 10 rebounds.

Trailing by 18 points at halftime and seemingly done when they fell behind by 20 with 6:04 left in the third quarter, the Celtics outscored the Lakers 31-15 in the third quarter to pull within 73-71 going into the fourth.

The remarkable rally was reminiscent of what Los Angeles did in Game 2, when the Lakers trimmed a 24-point deficit to two in the fourth quarter before the Celtics regrouped to open a 2-0 lead. But Boston had another 12 minutes to finish off theirs, and the green-and-white did.

Boston's comeback included a 21-3 run over the final five minutes, fueled by two 3-pointers from Eddie House, who was getting more playing time because of Rajon Rondo's tender left ankle. The Celtics were still down by double digits with 2 minutes left in the third but closed the quarter with a 10-1 run, capped by P.J. Brown's dunk - a slam that could be felt all the way back to Boston's North End.

The Celtics finally caught the Lakers at 73-all on Leon Powe's jumper in the lane with 9:05 remaining, tying the score for the first time since it was 2-2 in the first minute.

Lamar Odom was surrounded. Dozens of microphones and notepads closed in, cutting off every escape route for the Lakers' forward. There was nowhere to go, so he stood firm and answered questions about his troubles in the NBA finals.

Why wasn't he playing well? He was asked.

Why has he been in foul trouble? Someone wondered.

The media was tough.

The Celtics have been tougher.

Odom, who can go from magnificent to maddening in the course of one trip down the court, has been a major disappointment so far for Los Angeles, which will try to even the best-of-seven series against Boston in Game 4 on Thursday night.

He's averaging just 9.3 points -- 5 below his regular-season average -- and has spent much of the past two games sitting a few seats down from Lakers coach Phil Jackson after picking up five personal fouls in all three games.

It hasn't gone the way Odom would like, but he's trying to stay positive.

"You have to persevere," he said. "Right now, it's about the L.A. Lakers, not Lamar Odom. If I could just stay on the court to help the team do whatever, whether it's rebounding or making plays. You can't expect for every game to be a 20-point game in the finals.

"I'll go watch the tape over and over again and just see what I can do."

Wednesday was an off day as both team assessed Game 3, one of the ugliest finals games in recent memory.

"It wasn't the prettiest game," said Celtics center Kevin Garnett, who missed two dunks and seems to have left his shooting touch back in May.

For two franchises that have combined for 30 titles won by a Who's Who of Hall of Fame hoopsters, it was indeed a night to forget.

But playing in front of their celebrity-laden crowd in Staples Center, where they're 9-0 in the postseason and perfect over the past two months, the Lakers, despite missing 13 free throws and getting little from Odom or center Pau Gasol, pulled to 2-1 in the reborn rivalry series with an 87-81 victory.

Boston, for its many warts, which included a 35 percent shooting performance, still had a chance win.

As the teams practiced for Game 4, several players blamed the six-hour flight from Boston to Los Angeles for the sloppiness.

"I think most of the players out there struggled physically," Gasol said. "You could tell the travel and Game 2 and 3 being so tight together, going across the country pretty much is an overseas trip. It was like going back to Spain. I think that was a factor."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers, too, noticed players may have been feeling the effects of jet lag and fighting fatigue.

"This was the first game that I had four or five different players during the game signal to pull them out," he said. "I had to blow a timeout, one that I didn't want to use late. I thought it was a very tough turnaround and I think rest is very important."

One guy seems refreshed. Kobe Bryant soared as usual.

The Lakers' superstar scored 36 points, and showing why he's the league's MVP, did what he had to do to get his team back into the finals. Bryant went 12-of-20 from the floor, dropping jumpers, hanging in the air to sink floaters and drawing double teams to set up his teammates.

However, only one of them -- Sasha Vujacic -- matched Bryant's production. The 24-year-old came off the bench and scored a career-high 20 points, but "The Machine," was the only Lakers player besides Bryant to rise to the occasion in the must-est of must-win games.

Los Angeles' other four starters -- Gasol, Odom, Vladimir Radmanovic, and Derek Fisher -- combined for 22 points on 7-of-28 shooting.

Bryant, known to be tough on his teammates, has faith Odom and Gasol will bounce back.

"They'll be fine," he said. "We're playing a great team. It's not like it's going to be easy for them. It's a matter of them figuring out where those spots are going to be attacking them. They're both very smart, intelligent basketball players and they'll be fine."

The Celtics have their own problems, like getting Garnett going and hoping that Paul Pierce, who had a horrid homecoming in Game 3, doesn't choke under the pressure of playing in front of folks from his neighborhood in nearby Inglewood.

There's also the playing status of point guard Rajon Rondo, who injured his left ankle early in the second half of Game 3 and was kept out of practice on Wednesday.

Rivers said if the speedy Rondo is slowed by the injury that backups Eddie House and Sam Cassell would see more time. Rivers also may use Tony Allen, who did a solid job of guarding Bryant during Boston's two wins over Los Angeles during the regular season.

Cassell is one of the few Celtics with finals experience. He won two championship rings with Houston and has been trying to tell his teammates to relax and not be overwhelmed by the enormity of the event.

"It's the same game, it's just a bigger stage," Cassell said. "You're not at your high school auditorium any more. This is Carnegie Hall."

Pierce admitted feeling nerves in his return to L.A., and his stats line (2-for-14 from the field, 0-for-4 on 3-pointers, six points in 32 minutes) reflected his anxiety. He said he wasn't bothered by the sprain knee he suffered in Game 1, but the strain of being home may have been too much.

"I was probably a little more anxious than normal being that I'm at home in front of more family and more friends," he said. "I've got to block that out and go out there and leave it on the court. I've done it in the past, I've been out there and played and played well, and it's time for me to do it again."