Fun game! OK, I’ll play along. The OP seems like a decent guy, but he takes a lot of liberties with actual fact and tortuously tries to represent them as a new set of facts.
“
I offer up the following article as historical fact…”
“However, if people are to debate, the facts must be known.”
He immediately proceeds into a lengthy and pointless discussion of the Spurs vs. Lakers in the 90s (?)
Then comes the poor meat of his argument: the Lakers (the LA Lakers, folks – not George Mikan’s Minneapolis team in 1949; sheesh!) didn’t get to play the Celtics in their banner years of “
1972, 1980, 1982, 1988, and 2002.” “…
with a bit of luck and fate, we could have met six more times in the finals and I feel the score would be Lakers 7, Celtics 3 over the post Russell era.”
This is not logic or fact at all. It is flat-out fantasizing: it didn’t happen, Dreamweaver. Look, I’m a Bruins fan, take a look at our playoff record against the Canadians sometime. There’s some futility and heartache for you right there. But no self-respecting B’s fan goes to the lengths that the Laker revisionists (howdy, Hollinger!) go to in order to twist the truth into an indigestible purple and yellow pretzel. They are utilizing the LAW OF COMMON USAGE: Repeat a lie often enough, & get enough people to repeat it with you, and it becomes the truth.
These are the facts, and they are indisputable in regard to actual championships:
Head-to-Head: Boston Celtics 9, Los Angeles Lakers 2
Overall: Boston Celtics 17, Los Angeles Lakers 10
Laker fans seem haunted by the Celtics in the same way that Jerry West looks haunted whenever he has to relive going up against the C’s when the bacon was on the line. All the media roar and greasepaint for a state with a population of 11 million people did not make the hoped-for difference time and time again against the little town of Boston (about ½ million people). Which is why Red, bless him, made it a point to laud the C’s achievements to the skies every time they overcame a media that coddled the majority (by playing up to the Lakers) and an opponent that acted as if the championship belonged to them just because they showed up (1969 anyone? 2008? 2010…?). I am so proud of the Celtics for what they have done time and time again, against all kinds of long odds.
Now (and a big thanks to Greg for pointing out what was going unsaid), there’s the matter of the Dark Years. You know, the death of Len Bias to begin with. If you want to fantasize, consider how many titles the Celtics would have won with a guy who was bigger than Michael Jordan, had a better shot than MJ, and was considered by those “in the know” to be a absolute stud. He was described as “can’t miss” among the college coaches who saw him up close, and every NBA team wailed about the rich getting richer... sorry, you can't handicap Red for having the best brain in the barn. If Bias gets the chance to live up to his promise, Larry, Kevin, Chief, and DJ don’t have to play the ungodly minutes that wore down their bodies prematurely. As in: Bird’s bone spurs and bad back, and McHale’s broken foot, for starters. The Celtics were set for a long time, and the blackout 90s don’t happen. I award three banners easy to a team which hasn’t been taken apart that cruelly.
Of course, there wasn't even cap relief from the league, so the C’s were crippled literally and figuratively. They couldn’t so much as go out and pick up a serviceable replacement.
I say we beat the Lakers in ’87 without these catastrophes. And man, did we ever show up anyway… 4-2, not a foregone conclusion no matter what the circumstance. It took McHale letting a board slip away in order for that “Real Jr.-Jr.-and-a-bag-of-shell-zizzles” skyhook from Magic to happen. It was that close.
Consider also the death of Reggie Lewis, our captain, which further forestalled the recapturing of our rightful glory. And hey, in order to be fair & balanced, don’t forget a bunch of lottery ping-pong balls that somehow defied mathematical odds… these are a lot of gut-punches that would have brought any team down. We absolutely win a slew of additional titles with Tim Duncan manning the paint. I’ll accept the 5 that he won with the Spurs for the sake of argument.
If I can dream too, I want all the titles that death, injury, unfairness, and mathematical fishiness cost us. That’s much more fair than what-iffing about meeting in a few conveniently-selected years.
Head-to-Head: Boston Celtics 10, Los Angeles Lakers 1
Overall: Boston Celtics 26 Los Angeles Lakers 4
That’s what it looks like if you are playing a more realistic version of “What-If”. This much-improved WOULDA-SHOULDA HONOR ROLE is clear proof how dominant a franchise the Boston Celtics are, one of the best in the history of all North American sports combined (howdy, Hollinger!). Only death, severe injury, and flatly unfair anti-Celtic bias on the part of the NBA front office could slow us down. The Dark Times were real, and they were unfair. Real-world unfair, not sitting on a bar stool & slurring in-between sips of Flakertinis: “
Y’know, I really wish we could have played the Celtics in our other banner years – we really would have shown them. It’s so unfair. Pass me an olive.”
I just feel like tossing in here that I deeply came to admire Magic, Kareem, Riles, Worthy, and others after I heard them speak with thoughtful and high respect for our boys. I keed and I keed, but these were glorious times against worthy opponents and good men. And sorry, Kobe just isn’t these guys… my perspective might change given time, but it’s how I see it right now. A plastic and uninspiring punk-face. What a player, though.
“So, you Celtics fans see it as Boston 9 Lakers 2. However, that only counts 11 of the 61 seasons the two teams have been in the league, which many feel is misleading. To back that up notice that the Celtics advantage of 7 titles over the Lakers head-to-head drops to 2 titles when all are counted, 17-15. We Lakers fans see Lakers 37 Celtics 24 as the true and accurate assessment comparing the two teams over the entire history of the NBA.”I think this guff has been thoroughly debunked by now by plenty of other posters (really, anyone with an intact frontal lobe) by now. I mean, lookit: it is “historical fact” that if the Celtics make it to the finals, they’re probably going to win (17 out of 20 – without the woulda-couldas, and without having the luxury of waltzing through a traditionally weaker Western conference – remember that Russ was injured in the finals against St. Louis to boot… should be 12 rings for him & another for the C’s. The Lakers – any version – are not even .500!). Which is the real champion with the eye of the tiger I ask? Which franchise doesn’t blink when the prize is in the cross-hairs? We’ve never gone down all easy-peasey (4-0 or even 4-1) when it was time to show up for real. Never, ever suffered a 131-92 annhilation in a finals close-out game. Can you make the same claim?
Time to put this nonsense to sleep once and for all. Can’t believe I wrote this much (I rarely post, but I love to read), but hey, it’s my team! I’ll stand up for them too. [Anyone want to send this to ESPN for the sake of being “fair & balanced”?].
Good luck to all, 2010 is shaping up quite tasty, thank you very much. And may I say here, with all my heart: THANK YOU, DANNY! THANK YOU, RED! Russ, Cooz, Hondo… not enough ink in my keyboard…
See you in the finals in 2010?Have another olive my man, and be careful what you wish for.
Topic: Defusing the Celtics 9-2 finals edge over the Lakers (Read 26307 times)