2008-09 NBA CHAMPIONS

The journey began a few days after the Lakers were embarrassed last June 17 by the Boston Celtics in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, a 39-point loss that was the second-worst in a championship clincher.

The next regular season was about four months away, but the Lakers set in motion plans for what would become the team’s best regular-season record since the 1999-2000 season and third-best in franchise history.

After the Lakers returned from Boston defeated and humiliated by their rival, Coach Phil Jackson had exit interviews with his players to talk about the 2007-08 season, the postseason and about going forward for 2008-09. These exit interviews were a little different from some of the past.

“We got together at the exit interviews and we just said that’s unacceptable,” Jackson said. “We got there [to the Finals] a year too early. I told them, ‘You weren’t ready for it. This is a learning experience that you have to go by.’

“Those steps started immediately. They were the right steps to get to the Finals” again.

The Lakers, who would eventually finish the regular season at 65-17, second-best in the NBA, began the season 20-3. There was even talk about breaking the record for most wins during the regular season -- the Chicago Bulls were 72-10 in 1995-96.

The Lakers cooled off some, but the stage had been set.

“We started off like a house on fire,” Jackson said. “We were cranking right off the bat. That really helped. We just got a jump on everybody. Our defense was really good. It wasn’t as good when people started figuring it out, but it was good.”

The Lakers averaged 106.9 points in the regular season, third-best in the NBA.

They gave up 99.3 points, 13th-best. But they held opponents to 44.7% shooting, sixth-best.

Kobe Bryant averaged 26.8 points, third in the league. That was down from the 28.3 points he had averaged in the previous season, when he was named the league’s most valuable player for the first time in his career.

In his first full season with the Lakers, Pau Gasol fit in well with the offense: He shot 56.7% from the field, fifth-best in the NBA, and he averaged 18.9 points and 9.6 rebounds.

Bryant and Gasol gave the Lakers a one-two punch and two All-Stars.

“The 82 games were like a preliminary round,” Lamar Odom said. “It was just finding out that we had the mind-set what we were going to do and how we were going to do it and what our identity was.”

For the Lakers, it was all about staying in the moment.

They never lost three consecutive games during the season.

They never were derailed.

When the Lakers came to training camp, Odom was initially upset about being the sixth man instead of starting. But he accepted his new role.

Center Andrew Bynum was sidelined for the second consecutive season because of injury.

In 2007-08, he had played only 35 games before being lost for the season after injuring his left knee.

This season, he was lost for 32 games because of a torn medial collateral ligament in his right knee, though he came back to play the last four regular-season games.

“The journey, it was just a tremendous amount of focus,” Odom said. “We were doing so well that the season seemed short.

“The situation that we were put in in the Boston series inspired us. The situation that we were put in kind of set the foundation for this year -- about what we’re going to do, what we’re going to be about, where we’re going.”

The Lakers swept each home-and-away series from the Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers. Those wins included victories over those teams on the road during one six-game, 11-day trip.

The Lakers didn’t win either of two games in Portland this season against the Trail Blazers, extending that losing streak to eight games.

After one defeat in Portland, Bryant stormed out of the locker room to the team bus without speaking to the media.

The Lakers couldn’t catch Cleveland for the best record in the NBA, which was a goal at the start of the season.

But through it all, the Lakers refused to buckle, keeping one thing in mind, and that was to win the NBA championship.

“We kind of always saw that light,” Odom said. “It was like, ‘That’s where we’re going.’ It was the beginning of the year, but it was like, ‘Look, that’s where we’re going.’ ”

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broderick.turner@latimes.com