Boston Celtics Basketball Team

Boston Celtic center Robert Parish, the oldest player in the NBA, will be charged today with possession of marijuana after authorities found the drug at his home and in a package addressed to him. The case began in San Francisco on Wednesday night, when a drug-sniffing dog detected marijuana in a Federal Express package addressed to Parish.

Life goes on, apparently. If revenge is a dish best served cold, the just dessert ? jiggling jello? ? that the Lakers set before the Boston Celtics last June 17 was chilled to perfection. Of course, it should have been, after six decades in the refrigerator. Remember Game 6 in 2008 when the Celtics sent the Lakers home as crispy critters in a 131-92 rout that recalled the horrors of the rivalry from 1959-1984, when the Lakers were 0-8 in Finals meetings featuring Frank Selvy's miss, Jack Kent Cooke's balloons, James Worthy's interception, Magic Johnson's dribbling out the clock, the Sauna Game, the 3 a.m. fire alarm, fans rocking their bus. This Celtics loss was worse.

Curt Schilling is gutless. He sits courtside in Boston for Game 2, eavesdropping on the Lakers' bench -- and how would he like someone listening to what they have to say in the Red Sox dugout, and then makes it appear on his blog, "38 Pitches," that Kobe Bryant is some kind of jerk who berates his teammates. First of all, like that's news. If given the chance, wouldn't you scream and call Vladimir Radmanovic nasty names? But whatever, there's no bigger sissy than a hit-and-run blogger.

KG as in, this is KillinG him. . . . What you see was all you ever got from Kevin Garnett, but it was still a lot, expressed in bubbling emotion on the floor rather than dialogue off it. Those were the good old days, intense as they seemed at the time. Now this beating heart in a basketball uniform teeters on a leg taped from ankle to knee, trying to regain some of his old bounce, with no more riding on it than the Boston Celtics' return to glory and his dream ending. Not that embodying his team's hopes is new for Garnett.

Reggie Lewis, the Boston Celtics' leading scorer who fainted during an NBA playoff game three months ago, died Tuesday night in Waltham, Mass., after collapsing while shooting baskets at Brandeis University. Lewis was in cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived at the gym, and was pronounced dead at 7:30 p.m. EDT at Waltham-Weston Hospital, where emergency room physicians tried to revive him. He was 27. Lewis leaves a wife, Donna Harris-Lewis, who is pregnant, and a son, Reggie Jr.

If you want to know what the Lakers thought of retiring all-time basketball superstar Larry Bird, it's simple. They hated his trash-talking, hick-from-French-Lick Celtic-green hide. Of course, they admired him too--grudgingly--and became so friendly with him over the years, he seemed to have evolved into their godfather from Boston, earning a spot in the hearts of Laker fans far different from those of Red Auerbach, Kevin McHale or Danny Ainge.

BOSTON -- Firsthand, in person, he had to see the Lakers. His Lakers. Paul Pierce grew up in the shade of the Forum, the shadow of Magic Johnson and the era of Showtime. So, first through a tunnel, then through a window, he would slip inside when workers were distracted, sneaking around to see the heroes he had come to know by watching television. "I was a fan . . . and I was a little kid just doing what kids do," Pierce said.

HOUSTON -- It took the team with the NBA's best record to end the Houston Rockets' 22-game winning streak. Kevin Garnett and the Boston Celtics stopped the remarkable run emphatically Tuesday night, pulling away in the second half for a 94-74 victory. The Rockets hadn't lost since Jan. 27 and put together the NBA's second-longest winning streak. It ended 11 victories shy of the 1971-72 Lakers, who won 33 in a row.

One team put the hammer down, the other almost got nailed. While the Lakers were ripping through Denver in four games, Utah in six and San Antonio in five, Boston needed seven games to beat lowly Atlanta, another seven to slip past one-dimensional Cleveland and six to oust Detroit. Somehow, the Celtics' regular-season dominance (66-16) hasn't translated to postseason prowess (12-8), but here they are in the NBA Finals, ready or not.

Reggie Lewis' final journey through his adopted hometown began Monday morning, more than five hours before his funeral. A Boston policeman said that when he reported for duty at 7:45 a.m., about 100 youngsters were waiting in the doorway of Northeastern University's Matthews Arena--where Lewis starred as a collegian--to make sure to see their hero.

Kobe Bryant probably won't play Thursday against Boston, but, then again, who are the Celtics these days? Bryant did not practice Wednesday and didn't try to hide the fact that his left ankle was bothering him when asked whether he would play against the Lakers' longtime rival. "Right now it's a no," Bryant said Wednesday. "If I wake up [Thursday] and I feel drastically different, then I'll play, but I doubt it." Bryant revealed that he wasn't bothered as much by a sprained left ankle as he was by a sore small tendon on the outside part of the lower leg that runs behind the ankle bone.

Tough night in Witness land. If Shaquille O'Neal is supposed to get the Cleveland Cavaliers over the top and keep LeBron James here, let's just say the local townspeople have a lot to look forward to. The faithful in the "Witness" T-shirts didn't see it Tuesday night, even if the season started and the league, eager for good TV, served up the Boston Celtics, as if on a platter. Neither team had won on the other's court in the last two seasons when they became arch-rivals, but that ended with the Celtics' 95-89 victory at Quicken Loans Arena.

Wrong place, wrong time Back to Boston, without Andrew Bynum. . . . Haven't we seen this before? Oh yeah, last spring, when the Celtics tore the Lakers limb from limb in the Finals, ending it with that 131-92, have-a-nice-summer massacre in Game 6. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is the Christmas game upside down, with the Celtics bent on payback and loaded for bear, or even better, Lakers.

You knew the Celtics were in trouble when the losses began coming, puncturing their myth of invincibility -- or "perfection," a word that actually got into the media, showing the heights the delusion reached -- and Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett started talking about the need to get their "swagger" back . . . . . . Just before they headed to Cleveland for Friday's showdown with the Cavaliers. Some showdown.

They're back? If last spring's renewal of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry seemed like a gift from the basketball gods -- at least until it started, if you're a Lakers fan -- it's six months later and they're still on. With both teams atop their conferences, today's game is an actual event, as opposed to made-for-TV Christmas hypes like Shaquille O'Neal vs. Kobe Bryant I, II and III that paired the Lakers and Miami annually from 2004-2006.

They are the standard-bearers of the NBA, the two teams with the most history in the league and the most championships. And perhaps because of that, the contempt the Lakers and Boston Celtics long had for the other was palpable. It started in the late '50s and stretched into the '60s and then again into the '80s, when the Lakers and Celtics met 10 times for the NBA championship.

One by one, the Indiana Pacers filed into the Boston Celtics' locker room to pay homage. Usually it's the winners who offer consolation in the visitors' dressing room, but this was no time to stand on ceremony, not after Sunday's epic fifth and deciding game of their first-round NBA playoff series. The Pacers had been an unwilling partner in yet another legendary performance by Larry Bird and felt compelled to express their admiration.

Mark Acres was opening Christmas gifts at his parents' home in Palos Verdes Friday morning. "There are a couple of large packages under the tree for him," said Acres' father, Dick. Acres, however, got his best Christmas present last month when the Boston Celtics handed him a green jersey and told him that he had made the team. Acres, a 25-year-old rookie center, came to the National Basketball Assn. by way of Europe and Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, where he was coached by his father.

Now that everyone understands how little the Lakers' 21-5 record has to do with greatness, let's see what life is like for the other half, with the Celtics on their 76-win pace with their 17-game winning streak. Oh, that bad? The Celtics look so lean and hungry, nothing short of a repeat means anything, not the title they won last spring, or this season's amazing 25-2 start, which might even eclipse last season's amazing 29-3 start.

On the bright side for the Lakers, the pressure seems to be off as far as expectations they'll win 70 games. Even with the team still on a 71-win pace, an uneasy breeze stirs in Lakerdom. Even Vic the Brick feels it, as he acknowledged in their dressing room before Wednesday's game against Phoenix, wearing his trademark purple-and-gold striped poncho with the Lakers logo and his purple-and-gold fur hat. Huge leads vanish. The young reserves are zinged for being wild.