Ask 100 sports fans to make their list of the greatest rivalries in sports, and some usual suspects will invariably be there. The likes of Yankees-Red Sox, Duke-North Carolina, and Real Madrid-Barcelona. All worthy inclusions, no doubt, but no list would be complete without Lakers-Celtics.
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The Lakers and the Celtics have met each other on basketball’s ultimate stage on 12 different occasions. They first met in the NBA Finals in 1959. At the time, the Lakers were still in Minneapolis, and for the longest time, the rivalry was extremely one-sided. Boston won the first eight of those matchups, all the way till 1984.
Since then, though, the Lakers have taken three of four, winning in 1985, 1987, and 2010 while losing in 2008. Paul Pierce was on that ’08 Celtics championship team. And as someone who grew up in Inglewood, California, but spent most of his pro career in Boston, he has a unique perspective on the rivalry.
Pierce grew up wanting to play for the Lakers. But once he put that Celtic green on, he became public enemy No. 1 in his old stomping grounds. While on Byron Scott’s Fast Break, he was asked whether L.A. still embraced him when he came home, Pierce was blunt with his answer.
“Naw. Naw, they didn’t, I’ma be honest. They didn’t embrace me, not at all,” said Pierce.
They didn’t like him so much, in fact, that he moved to Vegas in the summer to keep his head down after that ’08 title. “It was bad,” Pierce said. “People couldn’t stand me. People just hated the fact if I was out.”
They’d even curse him out in public, so deep was that hatred. Pierce had a wild description of Lakers fans that anyone wearing purple and gold may not like.
“The Lakers is a gang,” he said. “You got Bloods, Crips, and Laker Gang. For real, it really is. I swear, and they will kill, I truly believe that. I was like, Let me get out of here.”
It wasn’t until the final two seasons of his career that Pierce came back to Los Angeles. But unlike his former teammate Rajon Rondo, he didn’t flip sides in the rivalry; he went to the Clippers instead.
Maybe Pierce felt safe because he was on L.A.’s little brother team, or because Lakers fans no longer saw him as a threat since he was past his prime. Just to be safe, though, Pierce didn’t put himself in harm’s way. “I’m a Clipper, I’m old now,” he laughed. “I live out in the valley, I ain’t come into the city.”
Lakers fans don’t mess around when it comes to their team, whether you’re a native son or not. Rivalries don’t die so easily, either. But it’s always fun when guys like Pierce and Scott can chop it up and trade war stories after so much time spent in the trenches.
