Ron Artest starting to give Lakers the stops they need

Reporting from Boston — 

It was undoubtedly the busiest day of the Lakers’ off-season, Trevor Ariza and Ron Artest swapping teams within hours on a warm July afternoon.

It’s taken a while -- OK, more than three months of the season -- but the Lakers are starting to see why they got Artest in the first place.

He played tight defense Sunday against Paul Pierce and drew a somewhat controversial offensive foul on the Boston Celtics forward with 27.5 seconds to play and the Celtics up by one.

Kobe Bryant took it from there, drilling a 16-footer in the Lakers’ 90-89 victory.

“[Artest] didn’t back down,” Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said approvingly. “He was physical with [Pierce]. He stayed strong, physically strong in that sequence and consequently . . . he got the charge.”

What a short, strange trip it’s been with Artest, the latest turn coming when he held Pierce to 15 points on four-for-11 shooting.

“I’m not going to toot my own horn,” Artest said. “I’ll just let other people judge me.”

Jackson did just that.

“It’s real important that you have someone that can shut people down or hold them down as best they can,” he said.

Gasol returns

It’s been exactly two years since Pau Gasol was traded to the Lakers, so it’s mildly coincidental that he ends up playing tonight in Memphis.

He has played two games in Memphis since being traded, averaging 19.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and five assists against his former team, but he won’t forget the bitter ending he met down there.

“The year prior to the trade, I talked to the ownership and to the GM about if there was an opportunity for me and it was right for me and right for them, then hopefully give me a way out, find me a way out,” he said. “That didn’t happen, but it got leaked out -- obviously not by me but somebody in ownership or management. One of the two leaked it out, so that made it even tougher because a lot of home games from there on, I got booed every time I touched the ball. That was rough to go through, very discouraging.

“I see all the players now, they demand to get traded, and they say it publicly and they don’t get booed and it’s all good. I don’t know why I had to go through that.”

Just the same, Gasol said he felt a sense of loss when traded.

“Part of me was sad,” he said. “I felt like I failed, like I wasn’t able to give enough for that franchise to want to keep me. But part of me, a big part of me, couldn’t wait for [a trade] to happen. I didn’t realize how great of a trade it was going to be.”

Back-to-back attack

The Lakers won Sunday at Boston, never an easy task, and play tonight against the up-and-coming Grizzlies. Toughest back-to-back this season?

“No, actually, Denver and Portland this week is a tough matchup,” Jackson said. “That’s a game at home [against Denver], obviously, an ESPN game, it’s going to be a late game. We’ll get into Portland maybe 2:30, 3 [a.m.]. We never win in Portland, right? That’s what you guys always say.”

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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