From the first episode of The Got ‘Em Coach Show: The Boston Dinosaurs
In this world, there are a lot of things that matter. Rarely, if ever, do sports fall too highly on that list. I love sports as much as the next person, but lets face it, most championships are given out once a year, more or less rendering them insignificant, or at the very least, certainly not unique.
It is this general lack of relative importance that allows some events, certain moments and the occasional player, team or game to transcend.
In rivalry, sports are no longer games. It’s City vs. City. Team vs. Team. Fans vs. Fans. However, with the ever changing landscape in sports today, including free agency, players forcing trades, ballooning payrolls, lawyers fighting over collective bargaining agreements, performance-enhancing drugs, etc., most rivalries are on life support. College athletics are built on rivalry, but even universities can’t keep their athletes in school. It’s tough to keep a rivalry heated
Except for Lakers vs. Celtics - the greatest rivalry in any sport, ever.
When I was a kid, life was simple. I loved grilled cheese sandwiches and playing in the backyard. That was it. That was my life. Outside of those two things, nothing else mattered, more or less. But when the Lakers and the Celtics played each other, I remember caring only because it seemed like everyone else did. When they played, I would stop whatever I was doing, go inside, turn on CBS, and start caring.
There have been 65 NBA Championships, and the Lakers and Celtics have won 33 of them. The Celtics have made the Finals 21 times, and the Lakers 31. They’ve faced each other 12 times in the Finals, a record across all of sports. Each team has 20+ Hall of Famers, a gang of retired numbers, and enough history to choke and kill a large, strong, virile horse. By the numbers, there is simply nothing like this in sports.
The Celtics won 11 championships in 13 seasons. The Lakers have won 5 in their last 12 seasons, and 10 in the last 31. Larry and Magic. Wilt and Russell. It should come as know surprise the two biggest player rivalries in the game have Boston and LA ties. Let’s examine the 1980’s, or as I like to call it, “The Greatest Decade of Any Sport,” as a microcosm.
From the ten year stretch of ‘79-‘80 to ‘88-‘89, one of these two teams played in every NBA Finals, and between them, won 8 of the 10 championships of the decade. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson resurrected the league from near financial failure in the 1970’s, and are widely considered two of the 10 greatest players in basketball history. Add to them Hall of Famers Tiny Archibald, Bill Walton, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson, K.C. Jones, NBA all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, and Bob McAdoo, and you see two of the all-time great dynasties in any era, in any athletic endeavor, mirroring each other, constructed to destroy the other.
Take into account the players and teams they competed against during the ‘80’s, including the Bulls and Michael Jordan, the Pistons and Isiah Thomas, the Sixers and Dr. J, the Rockets of Sampson and Olajuwon, the Malone and Stockton Jazz, among others, and their dominance is even more amazing.
What makes this rivalry unique is not just the incomparable statistics and numbers, players and history. It’s the fact that Lakers versus Celtics represents so much. From ‘58-‘59 to ‘68-‘69, the Celtics beat the Lakers in the Finals 7 times in a row (another record). At that time, Lakers versus Celtics was about a wood shed ass-whuppin’.
In the ‘80’s, this battle became about much more. Two different styles of basketball: fast break versus half court. Two schools of thought: progressive versus traditional. Two major coastal cities separated by an entire country-worth of land: sunny Los Angeles and the seemingly always autumnal Boston. Two lifestyles: Hollywood glamour v. blue collar New England grit. Style versus substance. And lastly, to a good and completely fair extent, blacks versus whites. This rivalry was an allegory for attitudes, cultures and racial equality. Boston was the predominantly white team, and LA predominantly black. At a time when the NBA was rapidly changing, this rivalry divided along racial lines, revealing the tension that’s plagued this country since it’s existence.
Even today, the Celtics are rough and tumble. Fighters, full of heart. The Lakers seem to always be the pretty boys. Flashy. Finesse. Soft. Some things change. And others never do.
What’s on the line tonight? Relevance. Which of these two teams is still in contention? Rajon Rondo is fighting for the deserved recognition as one of the league’s elite point guards, while the Lakers are hoping to find any point guard. Kevin Garnett will not go quietly as his window is slowly closing, while Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are playing for their uncertain basketball lives, possibly shipped out at any moment. Paul Pierce just passed Larry Bird on the Celtics all-time scoring list, but Kobe just passed Shaq on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. This game is never without storylines.
This rivalry was, and continues to be, remarkable. Representative. So, when they tip in Boston tonight, stop what you’re doing in the backyard, grab a grilled cheese, get in front of the television, and remember and revere what it used to be, and will always be to me.
LARRY BIRD ON THE BS REPORT with BILL SIMMONS
I can’t imagine what it’s like to talk to your favorite basketball player ever. When I read Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy of Grantland.com, got the chance to sit down with Larry Bird, I found myself excited for him. If you haven’t already, just click the link above and listen to 40 minutes from one of the greatest basketball players that’s ever walked the Earth. It’s an amazing conversation, highlight by Larry and Bill discussing the ‘80’s:
SIMMONS: I still think that ‘86 team was the best of all those mid-‘80’s teams.
BIRD: There’s no question.
Further proving that old, competitive habits die much harder than regular old, bad habits, Larry continued:
BIRD: In ‘87, Earvin (Magic) always tells me that’s their best team. Well, we had a lot of injuries that year. I would like to play them, heads up, with Walton and team we had in ‘86, ‘cause ‘86 was definitely our best team.
Now THAT would be fun.
When you hear the greats talk, I always want to hear something that, heretofore, I hadn’t known. The Legend doesn’t disappoint. Simmons asked Bird about his ability to watch old games, and remember them, play by play.
SIMMONS: Is it true that you can see, like if we had a game on right now, from like some game in the ‘80’s, you would know what play it was?
BIRD: I’m not as good, I don’t watch it that much, but I know ten years ago, you could start watching and I could tell you what’s going to happen.
SIMMONS: Play by play by play?
BIRD: I might miss one or two here or there, but I’d catch up with it.
Unbelievable. New life goal: watch Magic’s Junior Skyhook game with Larry Bird. Scratch that. Watch any game with Larry Bird. Ah, screw it, back to the trash talk:
BIRD: I was with somebody the other day, and they had a game on. I was looking at it, and I said, “I barely remember that one.”
SIMMONS: Oh really?
BIRD: It was against the Pistons. Usually the Piston, I don’t pay no attention to ‘em.
I’ve read before Larry Bird has taken a liking to Kobe Bryant, and that makes perfect sense. Both were preternaturally gifted, and neither was ever very social. Bird touched on Bryant’s longevity:
BIRD: You know, the one thing people don’t understand is, if you look at our teams, four years in a row we went to the Finals. And Playoff basketball’s completely different. I played two years of Playoff basketball, but our bodies don’t have time to recover when we had injuries.
So when you go two and a half months, and you start again, you feel better, but you’re not recovered health-wise. And that just kept adding on, adding on, adding on.
Kobe’s one of the toughest human beings I’ve ever seen, because I know what he’s been through, and he’s played a hell of a lot more minutes than me. And he just finally figured out, “Hey, I’m going to get hurt. I just got to play through it.” That’s the mentality of a great player.
So is Kobe still better than LeBron James?
BIRD: Kobe’s always been my favorite, since I got out…
SIMMONS: ...I don’t like that by the way…
BIRD: But LeBron James is, by far, our best player in this league.
The pair continued, discussing the erosion of team basketball, and our culture’s current YouTube obsession with the dunk:
BIRD: Even Charles (Barkley), they’re always talking about dunking. Charles was a dunker, but he’s more of a passer, a power player. But everybody gets caught up in these dunks. I mean if somebody dunked on ya, and you come down and hit a three, who’s ahead? You know, I never did get that.
It more than worth your time. Click here, and listen to Bird wax about Ricky Rubio, Bill Laimbeer, Ralph Sampson, and others.
BURN MY EYEBALLS OUT
Lower Merion High School senior, Kobe Bryant working out for the Boston Celtics at a 1996 pre-draft camp. Oh, Hell on Earth.
(via BobbyOnealGibbs)
MUST WATCH: Rajon Rondo dunks, then puts private parts on guy’s neck
C’mon Rajon!
Sent to me by Sports Show with Norm Macdonald writer, @BeniHoff. Rondo didn’t have to do it like that.
That was this week’s “C’mon Rajon.”
