The ultimate showdown in NBA basketball goes down tonight. It all begins at 8:30 p.m. EST, and is sure to have millions gathered at sports bars, pubs, your homeboys crib, or anywhere there will be a television. It's the classic rivaly: East meets West. This battle has been told many times over and is the most talked about rivalry in NBA history. Not since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird has this competition for on the court bragging rights, been so heated.
A little history on the teams:
The Lakers and the Celtics have met to play each other a total of 10 times in the NBA finals, with the Celtics winning the first eight games and the Lakers taking the last two. The first match up of the two teams was back in 1959 when the Boston Celtics beat the then, Minneapolis Lakers for eight straight titles. But the true rivalry among the teams didn't start until the 1960's when the Celtics beat the Lakers six times in eight years to take home the victory. Back then, the Celtics had Bill Russell and Bob Cousy and the Lakers had Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. After that period of time, the rivalry died down some, but was brought back with a fevered frenzy in the 80's with players that dominated the game for the two teams, namely Magic Johnson (Lakers) and Larry Bird (Celtics). The rivalry took on many parts of the spectrum from East vs West, working class grit vs hollywood glitz, old tradition vs air conditioned luxary, and most looked at it like black vs white because the Lakers were a predominately black team, whereas the Celtics were predominately white. But all of this, coupled with the emergence of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, the retirements of Magic Johnson and Larry Byrd, led to a decline in this age-old rivalry.
So folks, we're back to the basics on this one. Kobe Bryant vs Kevin Garnett. Kobe has three championships under his belt and the new age Celtics and K.G. have none. The Celtics currently lead in total championships with 16 to the Lakers' 14
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