The Lakers have learned a ‘hard’ lesson

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So the team of Mr. Softees hardened up.

The Stay Puft Marshallow Men didn’t get all gooey when the Celtics stepped on them.

Instead they gooed them right back.

Kevin Garnett got in Lamar Odom’s face. Lamar moved in closer. Rajon Rondo shoved Kobe Bryant. Kobe pointed at him (pictured at left) and reminded the young man to whom he was talking. Kendrick Perkins pushed Josh Powell. Powell pushed right back.

The final score was 110-109 in OT, but here are some reasons why the Lakers’ unexpected win in Boston was the transcendent team accomplishment to this point in the NBA regular season. Call it the Magnificent 7:

1) The Lakers weren’t intimidated anymore. They didn’t take the Celtics’ bullying.

2) They won despite an exhausted Kobe settling for jumpers, obviously playing with dead legs, the 61 in New York and 36 in Toronto having visibly drained him.

3) They won despite bricking 12 free throws. Make half of those, they win in regulation.

4) They won without Andrew Bynum, whose presence and size would definitely help counter the Celtics’ physicality and take away some of their easy hoops around the rim.

5) They did it in Boston.

6) More impressively, they did it against a Celtics team that was loaded for bear, having lost to the Lakers at Staples on Christmas Day. The defending champions

actually gave KG a DNP (did not play) on Tuesday when he was healthy and recovered from the flu, just so he could be even more rested and ready for L.A.

7) More impressively, the Lakers did it playing on consecutive nights, near the end of a long Eastern swing, when West Coast teams tend to tire and peter out.

I thought Kobe was being both honest and subliminal when, during his postgame remarks, he said, ‘We didn’t play our best basketball tonight, not at all.’

The subliminal message from the reigning MVP: I was tired tonight. I wasn’t at my best. But we won here anyway.

Finally, the fact the Lakers didn’t shrink away from the Celtics’ usual rough stuff shows that after the humiliation of last June 17, when they were massacred in Game 6 of the NBA Finals by 39 points, watching Boston celebrate its 17th title at their expense, the Lakers are growing more accustomed to the hard-hat style and know what to expect.

Tonight, you saw a Lakers team that realizes it cannot allow itself to be pushed around if it wants to beat the Celtics. But with Kobe’s legs alive and the team making their free throws, the Lakers look younger, fresher, faster and deeper to me. With or without Bynum. But make no mistake, if they meet in the Finals again, it would be easier with him.

-- Ted Green

Ted Green used to cover the Lakers for the L.A. Times. He is currently senior sports producer for KTLA Prime News.