Pat Riley relishes memory of Lakers-Celtics '80s rivalry

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics/2015/12/pat_riley_relishes_memory_of_lakers_celtics_80s_rivalry



Pat Riley relishes memory of Lakers-Celtics '80s rivalry



By:  Steve Bulpett

Tuesday, December 29, 2015





Credit: AP (File)



The “best team ever” question is a difficult one for anybody, but there has to be some sort of properly analytical multiplier for the coach of the era’s main rival. Pat Riley and his Lakers won more titles than the Celtics (5-3) in the decade after Larry Bird and Magic Johnson entered the league, but 30 seasons later, it is the 1985-86 Celts who are singled out as perhaps the best team ever.

“With the roster they had, they have to be in the top five,” said Riley, who was an assistant coach on the first of the Lakers’ Magic titles. “I can’t say they were the greatest team.

“You sort of evaluate a team that has been together for at least five to seven to eight years. If they can do something significant over that time, then I think you can really evaluate that team as one of the greatest teams of all time. But also you can pick out one of those seasons that they had as the greatest season ever. I mean, you can do that if you want to, because if you’re a dynastic team that lasts for 10 years, then you’re going to have some incredible seasons that are going to be better than others.”

The 1985-86 Celtics certainly fit that description, winning 67 games in the regular season and going 15-3 in the playoffs (the first round was best-of-five back then) for the franchise’s 16th championship. Bird and friends had defeated the Lakers for the ’84 title and lost to them in ’85. Then they added Bill Walton and Jerry Sichting to a core of Bird, Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson, Robert Parish, Danny Ainge and Scott Wedman.

“They were right in the midst of their dynastic run as a team,” Riley said. “They were right in the middle of it, as the Lakers were, and we were both trying to find that ultimate identity of being the best in the world by basically measuring them as a standard and we as a standard.

“It’s really the greatest rivalry in the history of basketball, Celtics-Lakers, and I think it was derived more so in the ’60s when Jerry (West) went down six times to the Celtics in their incredible run. But every spring, it seemed like it was Lakers-Celtics, so that’s what really planted the seed of what a great rivalry could be about.

“And also, at the time, nobody knew about it,” Riley added with a laugh. “I mean, only the most diehard of sports fans would even see the games on their black-and-white TVs — if they even were on television. So Magic and Bird basically in the ’80s were the contemporaries that brought that whole rivalry to light and showed what a rivalry is really about. It could be the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins and whoever it was — the Yankees and the Dodgers. But when it came right down to it, Lakers-Celtics in the mid-’80s was a time that both teams were reaching for an identity they didn’t know they could get, and they both achieved it.

“I think the Celtics’ ultimate season was their ’86 championship. That year, they were the most dominant team in the game. Then we reached ours in ’87 and ’88.”

Though the Celtics would get to the Finals in 1987, they were battered (McHale playing on a broken foot) and truly no match for the Lakers. The ’86 season was supposed to be the rubber match after the two previous Finals had turned into passion plays that captivated the basketball world and even those who were drawn only to the pure athletic drama.

The Celts certainly wanted a shot at Los Angeles in ’86, and obviously, the Lakers would rather have not lost to Houston in the Western Conference finals. They, too, were looking forward to another rematch.

“I think so,” Riley said. “I think if we’d have had another Lakers-Celtics Finals, everyone would have been happy.

“They were reinvigorated. After we beat them in ’85, they added Bill Walton to the team, even though they didn’t really need him. They added another dimension that year and more depth to that team. They were fresher. They seemed more enthusiastic about things. I don’t think in ’86 we were as strong. We lost (Bob) McAdoo and we brought Maurice Lucas in, and while he helped us, it wasn’t the same kind of dynamic. Kareem was really another year older and probably not even close to being able to deliver what he did in the ’85 championship series.

“So they might have been looking at us in another light, and there’s no doubt that when we played Houston in the Western Conference finals that that team (the Rockets) was special and unique, and it was basically a one-year wonder for them having the twin towers. It wasn’t until almost 10 years later when Hakeem turned 33 or 34 that all of a sudden they became truly great. Probably if I was Boston, I would have wanted us again and sort of finish the whole thing.”

The team that had lost the previous June came back with an even greater will.

“The Celtics were a team in the midst of their run, just like we were,” Riley said. “And what happened in ’84 to us when we felt like we choked it, we started this whole rivalry. But in ’85 after the Memorial Day Massacre (the Celts won, 148-114, in the series opener), it was really the season of lore, and a great storyline with Kareem at 37 years old. And we had to beat a great team. It reminds me somewhat of what San Antonio did to the Heat when we took that game and that series and that (2013) championship from them on that Ray Allen jumper from the corner in Game 6.

“Basically what happened in ’84 is we felt the same way and we came back with a vengeance. Even getting crucified in Game 1 like we did, we never lost any of that commitment and resolve to win.

“But both those teams were right in the middle of their climb to be really dynastic, and I think both teams proved that.”



bob


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What has always amazed me was that as dominant as those two franchises were in the 80's that they only clashed 3 times in the finals. In the 60's almost every year it was BOS vs. LAL.

For me, those series were bigger than life itself. They were on tape delay for crying in the night! It captured my attention like nothing else. The games were even bigger than all the hype. It still sends chills up my spine thinking about it...

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