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KRIEGER: Credit Nuggets for Lakers' run

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 4, 2008 at 11:44 p.m.

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The Lakers' Magic Johnson knocks away the ball from Boston's Larry Bird in the 1984 NBA Finals. The 2008 version of the teams play for the title this year.

Photo by Mike Kullen / Associated Press/1984

The Lakers' Magic Johnson knocks away the ball from Boston's Larry Bird in the 1984 NBA Finals. The 2008 version of the teams play for the title this year.

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Here comes the Nuggets' latest consolation, not to mention proof of the vast karmic conspiracy against them.

Assuming the Lakers outlast the Celtics in the NBA Finals that begin tonight, it will be three times in four years the Nuggets' first-round playoff opponent will have gone on to win the championship.

This makes it possible to argue that getting wiped out in the first round five years running is sort of a mirage. You're going to get knocked out when you play the eventual champs; it's just the Nuggets' luck they always seem to get them right away.

The only hiccup in this perfectly rational paranoia is the R-rated loss to the Clippers in '06. We came up with a whole other set of rationalizations for that one.

But first the Lakers have to pull it off, which would go against the history of this distinguished postseason rivalry, in which they are 2-8. A paroxysm of joy rolled through the burgeoning sports media industrial complex when it fell into the Lakers-Celtics matchup. Oh, the history. Turn on The Worldwide Leader and you are transported back to basketball's hot pants era.

At first, you think this is fun but immaterial to the present proceedings. Then you realize, wait, that's Kevin McHale, the guy who traded Kevin Garnett to the Celtics just last year. There's Danny Ainge, the guy who made the deal with McHale. And they're both playing for the Celtics. Hmmm.

Of course, there was quite an outcry over Memphis donating Pau Gasol to the Lakers at midseason, and the guy who made the donation on behalf of the Grizzlies was former Celtics general manager Chris Wallace. As you can imagine, Celtics fans like Wallace even less now than when he was in Boston, and they didn't think much of him then.

Beyond the front-office follies, the catalog of Lakers-Celtics postseason history is good mainly for the video. And what the video reminds us is this: The rivalry is memorable for the superb quality of the basketball, not the names of the franchises. The latest edition has a lot to live up to.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird did a conference call the other day recalling the '80s edition. Let's be honest - this was the best NBA basketball ever, before or since. It was fast, it was athletic and the least selfish superstars in basketball history were in charge.

"The thing that I tell people that Larry had that was probably unmatched with anybody - he knew how to make his other players better," said the always gracious Magic. "I think that still today nobody has surpassed him when it comes to that."

Well, except for Magic, the best point guard of all time.

Those guys played so fast they make Mike D'Antoni look like Hubie Brown. Nobody said you couldn't win championships that way. The last time they met in the Finals, 21 years ago, the Lakers averaged 115 points a game in the championship series. The Celtics averaged 111.

"One of the Laker girls could have scored a layup on us," Boston's Greg Kite said morosely after the Lakers' 141 points in Game 2.

"We were all about running - on makes and misses, it didn't matter," Magic said. "We were coming at you because we knew that's how we could win. The Celtics had a lot better halfcourt team than we had."

Not much has changed on that score, except that the Celtics will work a lot harder to slow down this series than Bird's Celtics did.

"If you notice in some of the games back then, whoever got the rebound, maybe other than (Robert) Parish and McHale, whoever got it would take the first two or three dribbles up the court to advance the ball as quick as possible," Bird said. "We were a running team."

Celtics fans are much more likely to recall the '60s iteration of the rivalry than Lakers fans, owing mostly to the Celtics' 7-0 record. "It's hard to call it a rivalry when you don't win," Magic pointed out.

But it, too, had some of basketball's great subplots, from the Bill Russell-Wilt Chamberlain morality play to Red Auerbach's cigar and Jerry West's existential angst.

By comparison, the current version looks like instant coffee, each team rising from mediocrity or worse in a single year, thanks largely to those front-office follies. They will have to meet in the final series a couple of more times, at least, just to get into the conversation with their immortal predecessors.

The raw material is certainly there. Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett should provide sufficient melodrama even without the heresy of Phil Jackson bidding to relegate Auerbach to the posthumous humiliation of second place.

If it weren't for the karmic conspiracy against the Nuggets, it would be a close call. As it is, the Lakers were preordained as soon as they drew their first-round matchup.

In seven. For old times' sake.

Comments

  • June 5, 2008

    1:37 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    flybys writes:

    The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics is a dream come true matchup for the NBA.

    Imagine the smiles in the league office when it comes to potential TV ratings after last season's San Antonio and Cleveland tilt, even with Tim Duncan and LeBron James on the marquee.

    Kobe Bryant is back to validate himself as a champion once more without the help of some 18-wheeler on the low block. Look for Jellybean Jr. to go Jordan on the Celtics.

    Boston remade itself behind master tinkerer and former arrow catcher Danny Ainge. Adding Kevin Garnett to the roster didn't take brains, only sparkling resources and aggressiveness. Nabbing Ray Allen was intelligent, adding another perimeter shooter and veteran presence to a once talented but lost and dysfunctional bunch of youngsters.

    This series has the makings of something special. Can Garnett and Paul Pierce will their team to championship nirvana past the maniacal and history-driven Kobe?

    That's why so many outside of LA and Boston will watch.

  • June 5, 2008

    7:35 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    LingLingfor_prez writes:

    Not watching this one. I am sure ESPN loves it, since LA and Boston is all they talk about anyway. Is the NBA draft here yet?

  • June 5, 2008

    9:31 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Cwillyrun1 writes:

    An overhyped series for sure. Other than Boston and the west coast, I don't think it's that big of a deal in the rest of the country outside of Celtics or Lakers fans, or bandwagon fans looking for the next winner to cheer on. ESPN loves to hype the Boston area teams so much that it's getting old.

    Kobe and Garnett don't make for the interesting story like Bird and Magic did, and neither of them are at the level Bird and Magic were at. Comparing this matchup to the Celtics-Lakers matchups of the past is like comparing the Mustang of today to that from the 60's. One is original, classic and unforgettable, the other can't claim the same interest, no matter how it's dressed up.