The NBA's Showcase Showdown

BOSTON

The chanting in and of itself didn't mean much; in fact, it probably struck many as a bit sophomoric. And there's certainly nothing original about people in an arena chanting, "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A!" What gave it context Friday night was that the men proclaiming they were ready for the Los Angeles Lakers were the Boston Celtics, a newly earned silver trophy in their midst. Already, it was like old times, like the best of times.

Lakers-Celtics is the Yankees-Red Sox, the Duke-North Carolina, the Michigan-Ohio State of professional basketball. The Celtics have won 16 NBA championships, the Lakers have won 14 -- which means those two clubs have won nearly half of the league's 61 titles. Neither invented the game, but both defined it, refined it, made it relevant. Between 1959 (when the Lakers still played in Minneapolis) and 1987, the Lakers and Celtics played each other 10 times in the NBA Finals. The Celtics, with Red Auerbach and Bill Russell leading the way, won the first eight. The Lakers, with Magic Johnson lashing back, won the last two.

They are the pillars on which the league rests, and getting them to meet in the Finals for the first time in 21 years is a godsend for the league and television partner ABC after years of declining interest. Twenty years ago, a Lakers-Celtics championship series had become predictably boring to some, even with Magic and Larry Bird dueling. But two decades of absence has apparently made the heart grow fonder, especially because this 11th matchup comes totally and almost absurdly out of the blue.

A year ago today, both teams were stinkers. The Lakers were trying to figure out what to do about Kobe Bryant's pointed criticism of management and subsequent trade demand. Had Bryant been traded, it's pretty safe to say the Lakers likely wouldn't have made the playoffs, much less the Finals. The Celtics, having won a measly 24 games last season, were in even worse shape. They were mourning not winning the NBA draft lottery (again) despite having the league's second-worst record. And had they won the lottery and selected Greg Oden, they likely would be on a five-year building plan, but certainly not in the Finals.

It's been a while since the NBA had this kind of good fortune.

Each of the four major team sports in America enjoys a bump in popularity when its signature teams, particularly ones with championship pedigree, play for the championship. The NHL is overjoyed that the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins are in the Stanley Cup finals. About the only thing better would be Detroit vs. Montreal.

What helps is that the current members of both teams are old enough and appreciative enough to know the significance of the two teams returning to the final series.

"What pretty much got me started in basketball, growing up in Los Angeles, [was] watching the Lakers and the Celtics," Boston's Paul Pierce said. "And it's ironic, just being a Celtic, growing up, now you're playing against the Lakers in the Finals. As a kid, I hated the Celtics. I'm going back home to play against my team that I grew up watching. It's a dream come true, just thinking about it. I think that rivalry really revolutionized the game of basketball . . . and now I'm part of it."

Kevin Garnett was just as excited, though he grew up in South Carolina and spent his latter high school days in Chicago. Garnett flashed back to sitting at the kitchen table, "that big plate of food in front of me, watching the Lakers and Celtics play on Sunday, Hubie Brown and Dick Stockton doing the games. I remember that like it was yesterday. Fire going. Mom telling me, 'Don't get too close to the TV, it'll kill your eyes.' I'm looking forward to this."

Okay, it's not the 1960s with the Lakers' Elgin Baylor and Jerry West playing Bill Russell and the Jones boys (Sam and K.C.) of the Celtics. It's not the '80s with Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy going up against Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. The league had fewer teams then, meaning the talent wasn't spread so thin. Those Lakers and those Celtics were so loaded with talent. Dennis Johnson, whom Bird called the best teammate he ever had, was no better than the fourth-best Celtic. That means Danny Ainge was fifth. Byron Scott was no better than the fourth-best player on the Lakers. Michael Cooper was fifth. Reminiscing shouldn't diminish what the two teams have to offer now.

We can look forward to this because these Celtics and these Lakers had the best records in their respective conferences in the regular season. We can look forward to this because Pierce, after holding his own with LeBron James and stuffing Tayshaun Prince, will now draw Bryant, because Pau Gasol will get the full brunt of left tackle-size Kendrick Perkins, because Garnett will square off against Lamar Odom. We can look forward to seeing how the Lakers, after waltzing through two series with relatively little physicality, will do against the bump and grind of the Celtics. And if that ain't old times, what is?

They won't plain ol' hate each other. The Lakers, other than Bryant and Derek Fisher, are too young to have worked up that kind of enmity, even for Boston. And the Celtics, particularly the Big Three, are too new to those green jerseys.

But by the time the series begins Thursday in Boston, they'll know more about the history of the rivalry, more about how important the two teams are to the league.

"Somebody asked me in the beginning of the year what it was like to be part of" the rivalry, Ray Allen said, "and I said, 'Well, we haven't created our own rivalry, and it would take us to play in the Finals to create that rivalry.' . . . And here we are."