Lakers-Celtics is still something bigger
MARK HEISLER / ON THE NBA
Even though it has been 21 years since the teams met in the NBA Finals, their rivalry is still the standard in the league where nothing else really compares.
Meaning no disrespect to 28 other teams, thanks for getting out of the way.
An NBA Finals is one thing, running the spectrum from Knicks vs. Lakers in 1970 (Jerry West's 60-foot shot in Game 3, Knicks come from 16 down to win Game 5 after Willis Reed is hurt, Reed limps back for the Knicks' Game 7 victory) to Spurs vs. Cavaliers last spring when nothing happened.
An NBA Finals with the Lakers and Celtics . . . or listed according to who dominated whom, the Celtics and Lakers . . . is entirely different, an event unto itself.
Lakers vs. Celtics is part of something bigger, a rivalry going back almost 50 years that defined the NBA over that time.
It has been 21 years since their last Finals . . . and all of a sudden it feels as if those 21 years are gone.
They're starting up right where they left off in 1987, with the same people telling the same stories.
This isn't just basketball. San Antonio and Dallas have a heated rivalry but who outside those two cities cares?
This taps into something bigger than the NBA, even if it's not really the cultural war it's supposed to be.
We all get to watch the same sports show on the same cable network and frequent the same restaurant chains, as they do in any hamlet in the South or Midwest, for that matter.
We do have different climates (long winter vs. what's winter?), lifestyles (urban vs. what's winter?) and icons (Paul Revere and JFK vs. Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.)
Happily, each has a champion to represent it in basketball so the stakes go up when their teams meet.
The Spurs' win last spring was nice, giving them four titles in nine years to the Lakers' three, making this San Antonio's era (to this point.)
In the Lakers-Celtics rivalry, winning means living up to a tradition older than anyone now playing in it, embodied by all the greats on hand -- Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, et al -- and those whose memory lives on, from Red Auerbach whose name is on the TD Banknorth Garden court to Wilt Chamberlain whose No. 13 is on the Staples Center wall, from the beloved Celtics' play-by-play man, Johnny Most, to the Lakers' beloved Chick Hearn.
Winning means bragging rights in a series in which the winners live to brag.
You don't even have to have been part of it. As the Celtics celebrated their East championship Friday, co-owner Wyc Grousbeck, a recent arrival, laid claim to Auerbach's mantle, not to mention Red's hubris, crowing:
