|
If, as
Jerry West says, the National basketball Association’s
(NBA) greatest rivalry wasn’t a rivalry at first since
the Lakers never won in the ‘60s and the Boston Celtics
never lost, it already seemed bigger than mere life or
death, at least in West’s life.
Nor did
the zeal diminish in their ‘80s rematches when the
Showtime Lakers and the Larry Bird Celtics battled on
even terms.
It was
the alpha and omega of rivalries, encompassing all human
emotions, starting, of course, with hate.
The
Lakers hated the Celtics and their blustering leader,
Red Auerbach, but then who didn’t?
No one
hated Auerbach more than Lakers Coach Pat Riley, whose
movie star looks masked his knife-between-the-teeth
drive. Riley believed every horror story about Red, once
ordering his team’s water barrel emptied in Boston
Garden.
Riley
wanted his players to hate everything about the Celtics,
gathering his players to ask if they knew what a Celtic
was.
“Finally, Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] raised his hand,” Riley
wrote. “He said the Celtics were a warring race of
Danes.
“I had
to explain that they were also a cunning, secretive
race.”
Of
course, Riley was Irish but he was a Laker first.
Not that
you had to be paranoid since the teams were messing with
each other.
Fans
besieged the Lakers’ hotel in Boston with phone calls,
waking up sleeping players—which Riley blamed on the
Celtics for giving out their location. Lakers officials
were delegated to wake up Boston players in their hotel
here.
Happily,
the fear and loathing ran second to respect that grew
into reverence among the participants, or at least some
of them.
After
the Celtics’ Game Seven victory in 1969, John Havlicek
hugged West, who played for the Lakers with a sore
hamstring wrapped like the leg of a mummy, telling him,
“I love you.”
Bill
Russell flew out for West’s farewell ceremony,
announcing, “If I could have one wish in life granted,
it would be that you would always be happy.”
By the
‘80s, the two teams needed each other as they needed air
and water.
Bird and
Magic Johnson lived to beat the other from the start
when they were bitter rivals to the finish when they
were close friends.
When
Bird retired, Johnson flew East and donned a Celtics
jersey for his retirement ceremony, whereupon Bird told
him, “Magic, get out of my dreams!”
Bird
presented Johnson at his Hall of Fame induction, noting,
“I was going to speak from my heart but, man, he broke
my heart so many times, do I have anything left?”
Sentiment ended at the tipoff. After the Celtics’ Game
Four win in the Forum in the 1984 Finals, Bird, on the
bus, saw Johnson slouch past, looking devastated. Said
Bird later: “I thought, ‘Suffer, you …’”
One time
or another, they all did.
1959
Celtics 4,
Minneapolis
Lakers 0
Rookie
of the year Elgin Baylor leads the remnants of the old
dynasty in scoring, rebounds and assists but the Lakers
are overmatched.
1962
Celtics 4, LA Lakers 3
The
relocated young Lakers jolt the Celtics, winning Game
Five in Boston to go up, 3-2, as Baylor scores 61
points, still the Finals record.
The
Celtics force a Game Seven in
Boston
Garden
and win, 110-107, in overtime.
With the
game tied and time running out in regulation, the
Lakers’ Frank Selvy, a two-time All-Star, misses a
wide-open eight-foot baseline jumper.
Says
West: “I’ve always wondered if Frank Selvy had made that
shot—and he’d made a couple of big shots right before
that—would that have helped change the course of history
of this thing?”
Couldn’t have hurt.
1963
Celtics 4, Lakers 2
With Bob
Cousy in his last season, Sports Illustrated (SI) says
of the Celtics, “Tired blood courses through their
varicose veins.” That must be where the SI jinx starts
with the Celtics about to romp in the Finals and go on
to win in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969.
“Please,” Auerbach says, “tell me some of these stories
about Los Angeles being the basketball capital of the
world.”
1965
Celtics 4, Lakers 1
The
Celtics win 62 games to the Lakers’ 49. That’s how close
the Finals are.
1966
Celtics 4, Lakers 3
The West
is now a sideshow. The new marquee matchup is between
Wilt Chamberlain’s Philadelphia 76ers and the Celtics,
who finish No. 2 in the East.
Nothing
can match the resolve of the old Celtics when they’re
cornered. In what will become a pattern, they win when
it counts, upending the 76ers, 4-1, in the playoffs.
The
Lakers come back from a 3-1 deficit to force another
Game Seven in Boston Garden but the Celtics win, 95-93,
for Auerbach’s ninth and last title.
Of
course, if Red knew Phil Jackson would one day get nine,
too, he might have kept coaching.
1968
Boston 4, Lakers
2
Dethroned in 1967, the Celtics see the defending
champion 76ers win the East for the third season in a
row and take a 3-1 lead in their playoff series.
The
Celtics then stage their most improbable comeback yet,
winning 4-3.
The
Lakers have been rooting for
Boston,
fearing the awesome 76ers, only to find they can’t beat
the sly old foxes, either.
If the
entire league is flummoxed, the Lakers, who won’t win
their first title until 1972—over the New York Knicks—are
really getting a complex.
“People
ask what it was like to finally win,” says West. “I
didn’t know.
“I was
so used to being on the other team where regardless of
how you played or how your team played, it was almost
like fate wasn’t going to let you win.”
1969
Boston 4, Lakers
3
This is
the Lakers’ year—they think—as they acquire Chamberlain
to go with Baylor and West in the, quote, greatest
collection of stars the game has ever seen, unquote.
Unfortunately, they’re all in their 30s and don’t fit.
Wilt and Lakers Coach Butch van Breda Kolff have so many
exchanges in the media, the Times becomes known as
“Butch’s paper” and the Los Angeles Examiner as “Wilt’s
paper.”
The
Celtics are really old now, falling to No. 4 in the East
but arising yet again.
It comes
down to another Game Seven, but this one is in the Forum
where owner Jack Kent Cooke has balloons penned up for
the victory celebration.
With
5:45 left and Boston up, 103-94, Chamberlain, the iron
man, hurts his knee and goes out. With the lead down to
103-101, Wilt asks to go back in but van Breda Kolff
turns him down.
Boston
wins, 108-106.
1984
Boston 4, Lakers
3
There
really is a Celtics Hex, a new generation of Lakers
learns.
Fifteen
years later, five years after Johnson and Bird’s duel in
the 1979 NCAA Finals, the highest-rated basketball game
of all time, they all meet again.
The
Lakers lead in the last minute of Games One to Four but
the Celtics steal Games Two and Four, starting with
Gerald Henderson’s Game Two interception of James
Worthy’s pass.
Says
West, noting the Lakers’ subsequent victories in 1985
and 1987, “And frankly, if someone had called timeout,
they might have won a third time.”
McHale
clotheslines Kurt Rambis in Game Four. The Celtics have
never been thugs but they’ve never been this desperate.
“We had to do what we could because we couldn’t keep up
with them,” says Bird. “They were running us out of the
building.”
The
Celtics go up, 3-2, in Game Five as the Lakers wilt in
Boston Garden, which turns into a sauna on a hot Friday
night.
By now
the Lakers are wondering if Auerbach can control the
weather as easily as turning off their hot water.
It comes
down to another Game Seven, the fourth between these two
teams. It’s a balmy 91 degrees in
Boston Garden
as the Celtics win again.
1985
Lakers 4,
Boston 2
Lakers
history turns completely around in four days, starting
when the Celtics bury them, 148-114, in the “Memorial
Day Massacre” in Boston Garden.
Riley,
written off as the lucky guy who inherited his job,
scorches his players in a film session, starting with
Abdul-Jabbar, whom he has always tread softly around but
who has just been embarrassed by Robert Parish in Game
One.
After
two days of Riley’s cold fury in practices, the Lakers
win Game Two as Abdul-Jabbar gets 30 points and 17
rebounds.
The
Lakers close it out in
Boston Garden,
the franchise’s Hell throughout its history. Game Six is
so decisive, even Boston fans applaud politely.
1987
Lakers 4,
Boston 2
Old
Celtics do fall, just not easily.
The
65-17 Lakers glide to the Finals. The 59-23 Celtics are
hobbled after seven games against
Detroit’s young Bad Boys in a classic that turns on Bird’s steal of
Isiah Thomas’s inbounds pass.
The
Lakers batter the Celtics in Games One and Two, 126-113
and 141-122.
In
Boston Garden, the Celtics take Game Three but Johnson’s
“junior, junior sky hook” wins Game Four.
In the
last exchange of shots in this great duel, Johnson’s
shot drops with two seconds left.
The
Celtics call time and in-bound the ball to Bird, whose
three-pointer is dead on but bounces off the back of the
rim.
“In ‘85,
they were good,” says Bird after the series. “In ‘84 I
really thought they should have beaten us. I don’t know
if this team’s better than they were but I guess they
are.”
It’s all
over, at least for 21 years. |
