The last time the Celtics played the Lakers in December, they prevented Phil Jackson, a least for a few days, from passing the late, great Red Auerbach on the all-time coaching victory list.
Now they’d like nothing better than to keep Jackson from surpassing the Celtics legend for most championships as an NBA coach.
The Celtics will take on the Lakers Thursday night in the opening game of the best-of-seven NBA Finals. You can almost hear the sellout crowd at TD Banknorth Garden chanting, “Beat L.A.,”
already.
Jackson eventually passed Auerbach on the all-time, regular-season victory list, but the Celtics made sure he didn’t do it against them by knocking off the Lakers, 110-91, in L.A. on Dec. 30 to complete a two-game, regular-season sweep. Jackson and Auerbach share the NBA record for most NBA championships as a coach with nine.
Celtics-Lakers may not mean much to young basketball fans because it’s been 21 years since the two teams met in the NBA Finals. But during the 1960s and again in the 1980s, Celtics-Lakers meant everything. They’ve met 10 times in the finals in all. The Celtics won the first eight and the Lakers the last two.
The Celtics have won 16 NBA championships, the Lakers 14. Between them, they’ve captured nearly half of the league’s 61 titles.
Celtics captain Paul Pierce grew up rooting for the Lakers and against the Celtics.
“That’s what pretty much got me started in basketball, growing up in Los Angeles,”
Pierce admitted, “watching the Lakers and the Celtics, and it’s ironic, just being a Celtic and now you’re playing against the Lakers in the finals.”
Kevin Garnett didn’t root for either team while he grew up, but he still watched them when they met because even their regular-season games were such big events. “That big plate of food,”
Garnett recalled, “in front of me watching the Lakers and Celtics play on Sunday. Hubie Brown and Dick Stockton doing the game. I remember that like it was yesterday. Fire going, I’m going to grab me a seat right in front. Mom telling me, ‘Don’t get too close to the TV, it’ll kill your eyes.’ I remember like it was yesterday, man. I’m looking forward to this.”
Every day the Celtics practice at HealthPoint in Waltham, they can see the franchise’s 16 championship banners hanging overhead. Now they have a chance to hoist one of their own.
Garnett can stop all the talk about how he’s never won a championship. Pierce would no longer be the greatest Celtic without a ring. Ray Allen would receive the payoff he deserves for sacrificing his offense all season. And Celtics fans would never again chant, “Fire Doc,”
the way they did last season when the Celtics lost 18 in a row and finished 24-58, the second-worst record in franchise history.
With California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, looking on, the Celtics prevailed, 107-94, in the Lakers’ only trip to the Garden on Nov. 23. The Big Three did their part, Garnett scoring 21 points, Pierce 20 and Allen 18, and Kendrick Perkins scored a career-high 21. Kobe Bryant led L.A. with 28. When the Lakers won at the Garden the year before during Boston’s 18-game losing streak, Celtics fans cheered for Bryant and chanted “MVP”
when he touched the ball. In November, they booed him. But he ended up being voted the league’s MVP for the first time.
The Celtics capped a 13-1 December by winning in L.A. Pierce scored 33 in his hometown, Garnett had 22 and Allen 19. Rajon Rondo didn’t play because of a tight right hamstring, so Tony Allen started at the point and scored 16. Tony Allen is questionable for the finals with a sprained ankle. Bryant led the Lakers with 22 points, but made only 6 of 25 shots.
The Celtics-Lakers game in L.A. was physical and nasty. Seven technical fouls were called and Garnett had to leave the game for a few minutes to get two stitches above his right eye. “It’s going to be fantastic,”
Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “When we played them in L.A. earlier in the year, I thought the atmosphere was nuts in L.A. and I told the guys after the game, it would be great if we could see them again, and the only way we could have seen them again would be in the finals. That’s the way it should be as far as I’m concerned.”
The top seeds from each conference will meet in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000.
A limited number of tickets for the first two games of the NBA Finals Thursday and next Sunday at the Garden will go on sale at 2 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets will be available at celtics.com, by calling (800) 4-NBA-TIX (462-2849) or by visiting the Garden box office or Ticketmaster Outlet.
The Celtics will face a different Lakers team in the finals, one with forward Pau Gasol, who was acquired from Memphis after the two teams completed their season series, and one without injured center Andrew Bynum. But the Celtics don’t care. After rallying from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit to eliminate the Pistons in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals Friday night, the Celtics are ready for anything.
“I guess if you’re going to go to the finals,”
Rivers said, “I don’t know if you could script a better way than the way we’re going.”
