Celtics–Lakers rivalry

• 1. Introduction

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  The Celtics-Lakers rivalry is, by many accounts, the defining competition in the history of professional basketball. On the 9th of April 1959, the Boston Celtics swept the Minneapolis Lakers 4-0 in the NBA Finals, marking the first sweep in Finals history and the beginning of a relationship between two franchises that would shape the entire sport for decades to come. How did two teams come to account for 45 percent of all NBA championships ever won? Why did a single college basketball game between a Michigan State guard and an Indiana State forward become the kindling for the most watched rivalry the league has ever seen? And what made the 1980s version of this battle so culturally potent that a sports journalist would later say it saved the league from bankruptcy?

• 2. Minneapolis to Los Angeles

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  George Mikan was the NBA's first true superstar, and under Hall of Fame head coach John Kundla, his Minneapolis Lakers built the sport's first dynasty, winning titles in 1950, 1952, 1953, and 1954. The Celtics, meanwhile, were growing into a power of their own behind early NBA star Bob Cousy, winning the 1957 Finals and losing in 1958. When the two franchises finally met in the Finals for the first time in 1959, Cousy had predicted before the series that Boston would sweep Minneapolis. He was right. He led his team with 51 total assists across those four games, a record for a four-game Finals series that still stands.

  The Lakers relocated to Los Angeles in 1960, and it was after that move that the rivalry began to escalate into something genuinely historic. The Celtics of that era featured Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, John Havlicek, Sam Jones, and head coach Red Auerbach. The Lakers answered with Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Gail Goodrich. The Celtics, however, won the Finals every year in the 1960s except 1967, and the Lakers were their opponent in six of those series: 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969. Boston won all six.

  Three of those series went to Game 7. In the 1962 Finals, Laker guard Frank Selvy missed a potential championship-winning 18-foot jump shot in the final seconds of regulation. He said in June 2010 that the miss still haunted him more than 40 years later. The 1966 championship was Boston's eighth consecutive title, the longest streak by any professional sports team in North America. At the conclusion of Game 1 of that series, Red Auerbach announced that Bill Russell would be the team's next head coach, making Russell the first African-American head coach in NBA history.

• 3. The 1969 Game 7

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  Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke was so certain his team would win Game 7 of the 1969 Finals at the Los Angeles Forum that he placed flyers on every seat in the building describing precisely what the celebration would look like: balloons released from the rafters, the USC marching band playing "Happy Days Are Here Again", and broadcaster Chick Hearn interviewing Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain in that order. Before the game, the Celtics circulated that memo through their own locker room. Bill Russell spotted the giant net of balloons hanging from the ceiling during warmups and told West, "Those balloons are staying up there."

  Boston controlled the game and led by 18 points entering the fourth quarter. Then Wilt Chamberlain was injured and replaced by reserve Mel Counts. The Lakers rallied with West pulling them to within one. With the outcome still uncertain, Celtic reserve Don Nelson made an improbable foul-line jump shot that bounced off the back of the iron and fell in. Boston held on to win 108-106.

  Jerry West was named Finals MVP despite being on the losing team, the first and only time that award has been given to a player on the losing side. In a gesture of good sportsmanship, Bill Russell held West's hand after the final buzzer, and John Havlicek said to him, "I love you, Jerry."

  The game also fractured a personal friendship. Chamberlain had removed himself from the game late, with the Lakers seemingly within reach. Russell later accused Chamberlain publicly of being a malingerer who had "copped out" when the game appeared lost. Chamberlain, whose knee was badly enough damaged that he could not play the entire offseason and ruptured it the following season, was furious and considered Russell a backstabber. The two men did not speak to each other for more than 20 years. When Chamberlain died in 1999, his nephew said Russell was the second person he had been ordered to notify.

• 4. Magic, Bird, and a Rescue

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  During the 1978-79 NCAA season, Michigan State, led by Magic Johnson, faced Indiana State, led by senior Larry Bird, in the NCAA Tournament championship game. It was the most-watched college basketball game ever played. Michigan State won 75-64, and Johnson was voted Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. Johnson went on to be drafted by the Lakers; Bird by the Celtics. The personal rivalry they had built in college transferred directly into their NBA careers.

  Magic Johnson later described how consuming the Celtics games became for him: "When the new schedule would come out each year, I'd grab it and circle the Boston games. To me, it was The Two and the other 80." Bird reciprocated in his own way: "The first thing I would do every morning was look at the box scores to see what Magic did. I didn't care about anything else."

  Sports journalist Larry Schwartz asserted that Johnson and Bird saved the NBA from bankruptcy. Bryant Gumbel put it more simply: "Magic and Larry saved the NBA." In every single NBA Finals series during the 1980s, either the Lakers or the Celtics were present. Game 7 of their first Finals matchup in that decade drew 40 million viewers on CBS, a record at the time. As a result, CBS began showcasing both teams in a double header every weekend.

  Several journalists at the time hypothesized that the Bird-Johnson rivalry resonated so widely because it carried other cultural contrasts: Hollywood flashiness against Boston blue-collar grit, the "Showtime" Lakers against "Celtic Pride." Race was openly part of the dynamic. Magic Johnson recounted an anecdote about a Black fan in Boston who told him that the majority of Black Bostonians cheered for the Lakers when they played the Celtics. Bird, who was labeled by some as the "Great White Hope", never accepted that framing. His teammate Cedric Maxwell said Bird's only real agenda was to "kick some ass and win." Johnson and Bird held, as observers noted, a deep mutual respect that demonstrated on a national platform how rivals of different backgrounds could compete fiercely and still coexist.

  A 1984 Converse commercial for its Weapon line of basketball shoes, endorsed by both players, staged their rivalry literally: Bird practicing alone on a rural court, Johnson pulling up in a limousine to challenge him one-on-one. Despite the on-court intensity, the two became friends while filming it together.

• 5. The 1984 and 1985 Finals

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  The Celtics held a 62-20 regular season record heading into the 1984 Finals, while the Lakers finished 54-28. Game 3 was a 137-104 blowout for Los Angeles, after which Bird called his own teammates "sissies" in an attempt to reignite them. It worked. In Game 4, Kevin McHale took down Laker forward Kurt Rambis on a breakaway layup, raising the physical aggression of the series significantly. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went after Bird in the third quarter of that game. Cedric Maxwell taunted the Lakers by miming a choking gesture after a James Worthy missed free throw.

  Game 5, played in the infamously un-air-conditioned Boston Garden under 97-degree Fahrenheit heat, became known simply as the "Heat Game." The Celtics won it 3-2 in games. In Game 7, Maxwell delivered 24 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists. Bird was named Finals MVP as Boston won and extended their series record against Los Angeles to 8-0.

  The following year, the Lakers came back. They finished the regular season 62-20 while the Celtics went 63-19. Game 1 became known as the "Memorial Day Massacre" after Boston won 148-114; Celtics reserve Scott Wedman made all 11 of his 11 field goal attempts. The Lakers responded with a win in Game 2 in which Kareem Abdul-Jabbar posted 30 points, 17 rebounds, eight assists, and three blocks. The Lakers won the series in Game 6 at Boston Garden, becoming the first visiting team to win an NBA championship in that arena. Kareem was named Finals MVP at 38 years, 1 month, and 24 days old, making him the oldest Finals MVP in history. Laker owner Jerry Buss remarked that the victory had removed "the most odious sentence in the English language" - the claim that the Lakers had never beaten the Celtics.

• 6. The 1990s Collapse and Rebuilding

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  On the 7th of November 1991, Magic Johnson announced that he had tested positive for HIV and would retire immediately. The news struck the league's marquee rivalry at its most visible point. The Celtics absorbed their own tragedy when star Reggie Lewis died of a heart attack in his prime in 1993. That compounded the grief that had already followed the death of Len Bias, a second overall pick who died of a drug overdose two days after being drafted in 1986.

  In 1994, neither the Lakers nor the Celtics made the playoffs. It was the first time in NBA history that both franchises missed the postseason in the same year. One of the more vivid moments from this dim period came on the 20th of January 1995, when Lakers guard Nick Van Exel hit a game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer to beat the Celtics 120-118 in the two teams' final meeting at the old Boston Garden.

  The rebuilding began from different directions. The Lakers traded for Kobe Bryant, who had been drafted from high school by the Charlotte Hornets, and signed Shaquille O'Neal, both in 1996. That same year, on the 27th of November, the Celtics beat the Lakers 110-94 in their first game at the new FleetCenter. Bryant, playing off the bench, scored two points in his first visit to Boston. The Celtics drafted Paul Pierce in 1998. Pierce was a native of Inglewood, California, who had grown up as a Lakers fan. Phil Jackson joined the Lakers as head coach in 1999.

• 7. 2008 and 2010: The Finals Return

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  Paul Pierce acquired his nickname "The Truth" from Shaquille O'Neal after a 112-107 Lakers victory over the Celtics on the 13th of March 2001, in which Pierce scored 42 points on 13 of 19 shooting. O'Neal pulled a Boston reporter aside and dictated the quote directly: "My name is Shaquille O'Neal and Paul Pierce is the truth. Quote me on that and don't take nothing out."

  By 2007, the Celtics had made blockbuster trades for All-Stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to complement Pierce and emerging star Rajon Rondo. The Lakers, meanwhile, acquired Pau Gasol mid-season. The two teams met in the 2008 Finals for the first time since 1987. The Celtics' largest margin of victory in Game 6, a 131-92 win that closed the series, broke the previous record for the largest margin in a championship-clinching game, which had also been set by the Celtics over the Lakers in Game 5 of the 1965 Finals.

  In the summer before the 2009-10 season, Phil Jackson ran into Paul Pierce and told him, "Get it back. We want to meet you in the Finals." Both teams obliged. In the 2010 Game 7, Ray Allen had already set a Finals record with eight three-pointers in Game 2. The decisive final game was the highest-rated NBA telecast since Michael Jordan's second retirement in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, drawing 28.2 million viewers. In Canada, 1.1 million viewers watched on TSN, making it the largest Canadian audience ever recorded for an NBA game. Bryant shot 6-for-24 from the field but grabbed 15 rebounds and scored 23 points, with 10 of those coming in the fourth quarter. Ron Artest's three-pointer with just over a minute remaining was the knockout blow. The Lakers won Game 7 against the Celtics for the first time in franchise history, claiming their 16th NBA title. It was the first time since the Lakers' own 2000-2002 three-peat that any team had won back-to-back championships.

• 8. The Championship Record

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  The two teams held 17 championships apiece from 2020 until 2024, tied for the most in NBA history. Together they account for 35 of the 78 championships ever played, or 45 percent of the total. As of the 2023 offseason, the Celtics held a .5918 all-time winning record and the Lakers .5915, the two highest in the league. Boston was the only team with an overall winning record against Los Angeles.

  In the 2021-22 season, the Celtics reached the Finals attempting to win their 18th title and break the tie outright. They lost to the Golden State Warriors in six games. Two years later, in the 2023-24 season, the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks to claim that 18th championship, finally separating themselves from the Lakers atop the all-time list. Boston's winning shot in that series broke the tie that had stood since 2020 and settled a question the rivalry had left open for four years.