Readers,
We need you to step up. Starting now. Converse has reached out to CelticsHub and Forum Blue & Gold, the Lakers-themed blog in the TrueHoop Network, and asked us to engage our readers in a contest with Laker fans.
The rules are simple: We want you to share (in the comment section of this post) personal anecdotes about the Lakers-Celtics rivalry. There are no strict rules or word limits, though your editor-judges will appreciate your keeping the anecdotes as short as possible while still conveying the emotion/humor/hatred. (Note: That doesn’t mean one or two lines is going to do it. Feel free to approach 500 words or longer—get a bit literary and descriptive, if you’d like). Also, though some PG-13 language is expected, please try to stay away from the really inappropriate stuff.
The prize: Five winners will get a pair of free Converse basketball shoes, with a slick black-and-green look designed to invoke the greatest franchise in the history of the NBA. Check out a nice big photo of them at the Converse Web site. (Laker fan winners will get this much uglier version).
As for the anecdotes, they could be anything. Was the first time you saw your father cry the night Magic Johnson hit his buzzer-beating hook in the 1987 Finals? Were you at the Staples Center during the Greatest NBA Finals Comeback ever—Game 4 in 2008? Better yet, did you taunt weeping Laker fans on your way out of the stadium? Did you mimic the McHale-Rambis clothesline on a Laker fan during a pick-up game? Is your spouse a fan of the enemy?
It could be anything, as long as it invokes the true nature of the greatest rivalry in hoops.
The five best entries get the free kicks. Also: The Converse folks have floated the possibility of giving more free shoes to whichever site draws more entries. Forum Blue & Gold has been around a lot longer than us and has a really, really, really active commenting community. They regularly get 100-plus comments on posts, many of which are well thought out considering that the commenters are, you know, Lakers fans.
So we need you. Get out your best anecdotes and post them here. If this post gets too far down toward the bottom of our home page, we’ll move it back up or re-post a reminder.
Check here for what’s going on over at Forum B&G, where their readers are reveling in the Magic Johnson Baby Hook and the time Lamar Odom slapped Kevin Garnett’s backside.
Also: Lakers suck. That is all.
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All I can really say is Lakers fans are so lame they don’t realize that their team wears purple uniforms, not blue.
watchin gasol and vujacic’s face at the end of game 6 when kg tip slammed the shit out o’ the ball, it was… priceless
When Magic hit that baby hook in the lane…I swallowed my tongue and banged my forehead into the arm of the chair until the memory temporary left my head. I gave up everything with a hook; Captain Hook, the hook & ladder, the hook with the ers on the end.
gasol-pedifile kobe-mutant chipmunk farmar- gets FM radio with those ears vujacic- get a haircut..
I have been a Celtics fan since high school back in the 60’s. And needless to say, I have always had an intense dislike for anything Laker related. One time my son (who was in middle school) brought a friend home from school who had the misfortune of wearing a Lakers tee shirt. I made him wear wear a shirt over it while he was in the house so I didn’t have to look at it. He didn’t come back again. He thought I was a bit deranged because he was wearing the shirt just cause he thought it was cool and didn’t understand why I didn’t like it.
This story contains only Love for the Celtics, unfortunately I have never heard of these Fakers? Bakers? Lakers? Whatever! No team, at least a team of men, wears purple and gold.
Being a post Cowens era Celtic was tough, but in 1978 Cedric was the only reason to watch the C’s – they flat out stunk. So with that seasons highlights as memory, I carried my love for Cornbread into the Larry Bird era.
Fast forward to Game 5, June 8th 1984 – Cedric fanned the flames of hatred by mocking James Worthy with a hands to the neck gesture after ‘Big LAME James’ missed crucial free throw – (this was actually after Kevin Mchale close lined the long lost Hansen brother from ‘Slapshot the Movie’ – Kurt Rambis, which at the time seemed like a good hard defensive play – remember I am from the Northeast.)
June 12th 1984. A young New Englander raised on hard work and hard drink watches in amazement as his favorite Celtic, no not Larry. Not Kevin. Not his nickname namesake “Chief.” None of those players had the loose style and fiery spirit of ‘Cornbread’, the unflappable Cedric Maxwell. Cornbread scored 24, tore down 8 and dished 8 as well. Pretty good for the forgotten Celtic, in a FINAL FINALS game! Cedric also caused the turnover that iced the “Heat” game (5).
It was that one Cedric Maxwell moment in Game 5 that galvanized me as a lifelong, never watch another team with joy, hate everything non-celtic pride related NBA merch, maniac that types this green tinged prose. You can have your Larry, Kevin, Chief, DJ – you can keep them all…Cornbread RULES! It wasn’t dirty it was just personal – it said “we hate you, you hate us and you just lost you loser!”
As an ending; I offer this perspective, ironically I now live on the west coast – I have met true Laker fans, they do exist and they know their Basketball…but don’t think for a moment that the Lakers will ever be as good as my beloved Celtics, or Cornbread for that matter.
hmmmm. What is a Laker? Its a ship used on the Great Lakes. I guess that makes Boston “The Perfect Storm”. Boston is easily the best team because we have produced more Great Names. Now I could go on and show you a list of Great names but you probably know the entire rosters dating back to the beginning of basketball. Lakers are all about one Legend carrying a team, but the Celtics are the perfect example of unity and hard work. The Celtics will always be remembered as a great franchise and the Lakers= a boat full of egos!
….Now I forgot to add my personal expierence. Well when i saw the Celtics beat the Pacer during the Regular season it was love at first sight. Alright got to go now my mom says I have to go to bed.
Words cannot convey my appreciation for the way the game is played in Boston. The dismantling of the LA Lackeys in game six of the ‘07 Finals quenched my thirst from the twenty odd years of mourning. The look of utter defeat on Phil of the crooked spine was a priceless moment. Basketball is a game of matchups. The zen-less one realized that his squad was over-matched.
The ‘86 Finals was memorable for me because Tragic Johnson was dealt a blow when he faced a healthy Celtic team that matched him stride for stride. James the worthless one’s tightened buttocks caused him to miss those crucial free throw as well. Ahhhh joy, joy, joy.
I have watched numerous grainy footage of Russell’s crew dissect those Fakers. I am not a big Pistons or Jordan fan, but I took delight in them toppling the evil empire.
Barring a major injury the Celtics will take the crown from the putrid clutches of Doctor Buss.
cough…. cough… let me clear my throat. First off, not only are the lakers the most overhyped teamed in all of sports history, they wear purple. I could end this discussion right here…. but no let me proceed! Let’s start with none other than laker “fans”, who are sooooooo in love with there team-kobe bryant, half of them dont show up until half way threw the second quarter, the other half are to busy drinking lattes and playing on thier blackberrys to notice how big of cry babys – rapists their beloved Lakers are. The Staple Center is a joke, the Garden is rocking from the moment the doors open. Laker fans = movie producers, musicians, actors and douche bags who wear purple. Celtics fans are real people, they embrace their TEAM, I mean shit we welcomed Starbury. Only because we believed it would help OUR team. Laker fans have booed Kobe Bryant, booed Shaq (whom is the only reason they have any rings this side of the 90’s, besides a certain someones bad knee), and have also basically disappeared in a finals game that literally crushed their teams chances at winning a championship. But take a look at the other side of the ball, when KG went down this year we didn’t sit on our hands and pout, we embraced and believed like we had never before. I will never forget the confetti falling on kobe’s head, KG Kissing Floor and E House letting F bombs fly, it was beautiful then and it will be beautiful in June!!!! LET’S GO CELTICS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sincerely,
BoBo
I just got to college at Boston University, hometown of the Boston Celtics, aka my favorite sports team ever. My roomate is from LA, and he has a lot of friends from highschool who came to school with him. When they came into my room and saw my celtics posters, they scoffed and told me that the celtics suck. I yelled at them and told them why i dislike every player on the Lakers, individually. His friends are not my friends. Thats what i get for defending my pride and my team.
What is with the commentators on this site (with the notable exception of FLCeltsFan and Sweeny)? Don’t you get tired of defining the Celtics-Lakers rivalry through insults and lame nicknames (Tragic Johnson? Really? How long did it take you to think of that one?) and generalizations? From the comments above I’ve learned that the LA Fakers/Lackeys wear purple, which is the color of women or homosexuals. I’ve learned that all Lakers fans are stereotypical Hollywood-type douche bags while Celtics fans are good blue-collar workers, you know, True Americans. Although maybe you should think this last point through as I believe Paul Pierce grew up in the shadow of the Forum and I seem to remember a fair amount celebrities on the Celtics bandwagon the last couple of years.
So in conclusion, none of you are Chuck Klosterman so why don’t you stop trying to turn the Lakers-Celtics rivalry into a expose of the divides in society and simply respect the other team and their fans? Celtics fans always seem to claim the moral high ground yet on every Celtics message board there is always a much lower percentage of intelligent and respectful posts than on Forum Blue and Gold, for example. Be careful, people might begin to think you’re insecure…
My brother and I hail from Bangladesh, a wee tick of nation near India where ‘basketball’ is about as popular as cricket is in Texas. We are as thick as thieves, but on one vital point, we are arch-nemesis. He swears by the purple & gold, the glitzy Showtime and I am a staunch warrior of Celtics Pride.
I came to the U.S. in 2002, straight to the heart of the lovely post-industrial shamble of a city called “Woostah, Mass”, affectionately reviewed by a student in my college guide as “the fart of the commonwealth”. I also walked straight into the heart of the Jimmy O’Brien’s patented Antoine Walker/Paul Pierce Bombs Away Celtics.
Fresh off the heroic 4th quarter playoff comeback against the Nets, my freshmen year classmates would regale me about the awesomeness I was about to witness. And that I did, becoming a fan of that maddeningly frustrating squad of misfits and vagabonds, your hard-working lunch bucket Eric Williams & Tony Batties, your Kedrick Browns and J.R Bremers, Antoine in his most polarizing prime, and the constant, constant barrage of 3 pointers hoisted up in vain.
When I visited my brother in New York (a Yankee fan too, no less), who had come here quite a few years before me, he was aghast at my choice of team and their then putrid play. The Lakers were his bandwagon, fresh off a three peat and soon to add the loathed Karl Malone and Gary Payton as well in a bid to ‘buy a championship’. The Celtics circa 2003-2005 were indeed a painful team to watch, in style and substance. But therein formed my bond with this team (that and many, many nights of drinking with the mates and cursing at the TV). They may be ugly, they may have been frustrating but they were mine, they were ours. I was given crash courses in Celtics history, and soon the Green Team was eating up a significant chunk of my life – no baseball, no football, just Celtics. I invested myself in Dannys rebuilding, and choked through the lean years, from morbid anger when the arch-villain Kobe – KOBE! – was cheered at the beloved Boston (Insert Garden Name Here), to sweet sorrow when knowing Al Jefferson, the greatest post player since Kevin McHale according to us kool-aid drinkers, would soon be gone.
Fast-forward to Game 4, 2008 Finals, at my brother’s apartment. After years of abuse and mockery at his hand, would come the slow, sweet and everlasting revenge on the back of my hero Paul Pierce and his supporting cast. Never has victory felt that good, and after that comeback I could see from my brothers sagging shoulders in his Bryant jersey, ironically mimicking his idols exact pose, that the Lakers were defeated and the Celtics sun had risen. He conceded then, as did his team and the rest was glorious history.
In 2010, the two titans will meet again, and this time around both my brother and I will watch on equal terms, as champions.
Been watching since the days of the Big 3…there were many many great moments, but the best night of my life was sitting on my couch, watching game 6 of the 2008 finals with my diehard laker-fan friend….hope my wife doesn’t see this…
17 comments? That’s it?
Not a single mention of Kevin McHale’s assault on Rambis?
hmm…interesting.
Hate the Lakers?! That’s small minded. As Bill Russell noted in his autobiography, the com- in competition means “with:” no Lakers would mean no Celtics as we know them, just as without Wilt Chamberlain Russell would never have achieved the greatness he did.
I grew up in Southern California until age 11. It seems like every other week Jerry West and Elgin Baylor were playing out Atticus Finch’s definition of courage, knowing they were licked before they started, but giving it their whole heart, soul, and guts, only to fall to Russell, Cousy, the Joneses, and the perpetually in motion and perpetually in the right place John Havlicek.
What a relief when I was fourteen, truly aware, and truly in love with NBA basketball to live in the land of the champions. I fell in love with the Cowens/White/Havlicek Celts. Think KG plays like a mad dog? You must never have seen Dave Cowens cover opposing point guards and centers on successive plays.
Someone has already posted about Cedric Maxwell’s finals MVP performance. Max was the man! But if you didn’t appreciate how great the Showtime Lakers played the game you were blinded by your green glasses. Again, without Magic Bird could not fly as high as he did; fewer “Bird stole the ball”-type memories.
We can’t hate the Lakers, we have to love them for helping us achieve the greatness we have. My greatest modern Celtics memory is witnessing the absolute spanking we delivered them in the 2008 Finals. It was tremendous to spend the fourth quarter celebrating, but the closest thing to a great memory moment was Ray Allen getting the offense spread and then blowing around Sasha Vujacic, who subsequently cried!
Would Jerry West cry? Would Baylor? Wilt? Jabbar? Magic? Worthy?
The current Lakers are almost hateable; they are so lacking in charisma. But we can’t hate them any more than Hemingway’s Old Man could hate his fish. We cannot hate them, but next season we have to kill them… again.
Wow Jeff, we are of like mind, sort of. Hate? No! Pity? Patience? Lots of it.
I took over a department at an industrial facility in May of 1984, recruited to reunite a function with three key managers that had been split up by my predecessor . The first opportunity to meet this staff was taking them to lunch on my first day when I introduced myself, including a bit about being a Michigan Wolverine fan with a dislike for anything Buckeye. One key staff member explained that he had a Rose Bowl ring from a Woody Hayes team that played against O. J. Simpson. I then used the Boston Celtics of the Russell era and Cowens era, as the epitome of teamwork I expected for our reconstructed department; of course they had to be Lakers fans, big on show time, and the concept did not immediately register. After extracting my foot from my mouth, we had a productive introductory session. All were ex-athletes so we shared many metaphors. Come Memorial Day, and a Finals matchup between the Lakers and Celtics, i convened a staff meeting at my hotel (being the deep South, ’twas no holiday) to watch the afternoon game. I took a lot of grief from that crew, but the Celtics proved my point over the course of the series as Cornbread Maxwell turned out to be the hero of a great game seven.
Over the years we worked together, they learned the meaning and value of teamwork. All anyone had to do was reference cornbread, in any context, to signal the need to check our egos if a prima donna was beginning to emerge. At one particularly stressful morning meeting, the most rabid Laker fan arranged for cornbread (instead of donuts) to go with coffee – it had meaning. Of course, I had a steady diet of cornbread fed me during the 1985 finals, but by then, those Laker fans could appreciate teamwork, and I had to play my role.
Even Laker fans can learn from the Celtics, whether they realize it or not.
This summer I went to play some pick-up basketball with my friend who is a passionate Lakers fan. Since I’m the biggest Celts fan he knows, we often get into arguments such as which franchise is the greatest ever, which team is better this season, or whose mother is more promiscuous (the fights will often devolve into insulting each other’s mothers).
At the gym we play some 5-on-5 and I get into a bit of a verbal fight with a guy on the other team. Having played with a lot of these guys before, and being known as a scrappy little point guard, one of my teammates compares me to Rajon Rondo jawing and getting into it with Kobe or, more recently, Kirk Hinrich.
Taking this as a huge compliment (Rondo being my favorite current Celtic), we start a new game to 21 in which I play out of my mind. Channeling the Rajon from the Chicago and Orlando series, we win and I finish with a great stat line (I don’t know the actual numbers), complete with some highlight reel behind-the-back and no-look passes, as well as one circus-shot lay up. I’m pretty certain I will never play that well again.
Obviously this was a great day for me already. However, on the way home it would get even better. Pulling out onto the short stretch of highway we have to take to get home, my friend (the Lakers fan) ends up going 77 in a 65 and getting pulled over. The officer sees a basketball and sneakers in the back and ends up inquiring about our NBA team preferences. We respond, pointing out our shirts – a Lakers jersey and a Celtics shirt.
The cop proceeds to then reach across my friends face, through the driver’s window, to extend his fist to me for an Obama-style fist bump, which I promptly accept. He then gives my friend a ticket for speeding, warns him about the dangers of speeding and of being a Lakers fan in Massachusetts, and lets us go on our way.
This may have been a somewhat unprofessional action by the police officer, but for me it put the cherry on top of the sundae. Fortunately my friend easily had the means to pay the ticket, although no doubt his pride had taken a hit. It was a great day for me and left me with a story I always love telling.
im a die hard celtics fan and i live in san diego and i absolutely hate the damn lakers and all these fake ass cali people that love the lakers and talking all kinds of shit after the lakers won the championship this past season but the one thing that laker fans need to remember is that there is only 1 reason that happened and thats cuz garnett got injured as well as powe(we love u leon) but ya’ll faker lovers need to remember u didnt beat the celtics to win he championship like we beat u 2 years ago so untill u beat us u really havent done anything cuz to be the champs u have to beat the champs in a meaningfull game not a regular season game cuz that dont mean shit and for god sakes people dont forget who has the most championship banners and tell ur boy/girl sasha with his/her hair he needs kiss ray allens shoes and start calling him daddy same thing goes for u to pao u need to start calling kg daddy or master or sumthing like that
I worked with a die-hard Laker’s fan at my last job and we were reminiscing about 80’s C’s-LA. Today’s game to me just doesn’t have the same dynamic. When was the last time there were 7 HOF guys on the same court at the same time? 84′ Finals, that’s when. Remember; “Henderson stole the ball!!” Those teams truly HATED each other, and that is why it was so great- they would have fought to the death. Those 80’s Celtics teams had to beat Philly, Milwaukee/Indiana, and later Detroit while the Lakers showboated their way to the Finals. Still, it will be hard in this era to match the same intensity. The McHale take down today would get him suspended for the rest of the series…
You know – leaving aside the fact that the ‘omg celtics are best, fakers suxx0rs’ posts dwarf the intelligent posts here, Forum Blue & Gold’s members are pretty much putting you guys to shame. Way to represent, Celtic fans.
The celtics are to diamonds what the lakers are to cubic zirconium. The first takes time to develope its unity and clarity, but once it does it shines at all the right moments, and will stand the tests of time.
The latter is flashy and may look good on the surface, but when you look closely you see its not real, fake and a pretender.
nanana a boo boo
We have more championships than you do,
nanana a boo boo
we have less rapists too
nanana a boo boo
we have more Americans than you do
nanana a boo boo
our cheerleaders are hotter too
nanana a boo boo
we wear less girly hair bands than you do (see vujacic)
nanana a boo boo
we played you 11 times in the championships and you only won two!!
Go Celtics!
Where I come from, there is no local NBA team. Not even close. So, when as a young boy, lured by the magic that is the game of hoops, I had the entire league from which to draw my team. Maybe it was the improbable greatness of Larry Bird. Maybe it was the parquet floor or the emerald green uniforms. Maybe it was the history, the championships, the stories of mystical Leprechauns guarding the rims. Or maybe it was Kevin McHale’s appearance on Cheers. Whatever the reason was, I fell in love with the Boston Celtics, have bleed green ever since, and have faithfully followed the commandment- ‘thou shall vilify the Lakers’.
The golden age of the original Big Three was just before my time, so I have suffered through many years of cursed fortune- Larry’s back, Reggie’s passing, losing the Duncan lottery. And to make matters even worse, The Enemy was oozing out champions at a healthy rate, and catching up in the banner count. Slowly the doubts crept in- will I ever have a championship team of my own? It was true that Bird, McHale, and Parish weren’t walking through that door, but one glorious summer Garnet and Allen did. A flash-flood of hope; we were contenders again! Throughout the season the C’s kept winning and the flood waters kept rising. Then after a long hard year of blood sweat and tears, we reached the golden plateau. Here, the final foe was, as it always has been, and always will be, The Enemy.
The defining segment of the finals battle was game 4. Living in Japan now, I watched alone in my room, huddled over my small laptop screen propped up on the tatami mat floor. The details of the first half have been erased from my memory, save one seared image of Odom dunking on a break and poking his tongue tauntingly at the camera. From another time zone, my girlfriend offers some consoling remark via online chat at halftime where The Enemy is up by 24 pts. “It’s not over yet. Anything can happen in this game” I retort sheepishly. The details of the second half are now just as vague as the first, but the memory of the sensations remains. First the despair dulls to a comfortable numbness but then, slowly, feeling returns. The C’s make shots. The C’s get stops. “It’s not over” Doc yells. A glimmer of hope; maybe we can do this! Posey and Eddie are knocking down threes. Hope is growing. Pierce is shutting down Kobe- we can do this! Ray blows by Vuja?i? and makes the game sealing layup- we’ve done it! The biggest comeback win in NBA Finals history, and the C’s are up 3-1. Everyone knows The Enemy is broken now. Vuja?i? is crying. There is no coming back from this. Banner 17 will be ours and The Enemy has been humbled. I’m sitting on my tatami mat, alone but with a grin wider than Bill Russell’s wingspan. Like Pierce, KG, and Ray, I now have a championship of my own.
I have one thing to say: did you see what sasha v. did when he went to the bench crying after ray allen stopped him in place, and went up for a lay up in game 4 of the finals???
Dear readers I am further commenting because there is so much to be said about my team. The “Truth” is the Celtics will always be better than the Lakers. Why you ask?. I hate to be corny but I would like to quote the great Red Auerbach, “He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.” Which brings me to my main point Trust! Trust and a hunger to win is what makes the Celtics unique and my favorite team . In the Celtics last journey in the Finals everyone got to contribute which shows the “Trust” that the organization has with its players and coaches. Thank you for taking the time to read my second essay I hope I revealed a good light of the Celtics.
Game 4 -08 finals
After the greatest comeback game I’ve ever watched live. 3 men drunkenly wandered from Brookline home to the North End, yelling out our joy as fan honked back at us, and stopping at a bar along the way to watch game highlights before closing time. Tell me that would happen in LA. They probably need designated drivers when they watch the game at a friends house.
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=maps&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl
Hey Boston don’t hate your consider past tents now the championship is were
it belongs and if you would have not laid down against orlando we would have sweep your -SS four straight
show some respect for a champion
LOS ANGELES LAKERS NBA CHAMPIONS
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