{"id":7068,"date":"2010-06-02T21:42:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T04:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=7068"},"modified":"2017-06-10T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T18:12:10","slug":"the-peterson-principle-6210","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=7068","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle 6\/2\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Those were the days<\/p><\/div>\n

The NBA just got interesting again. The season starts in October when football is in full swing and we forget about it for the next three months while we\u2019re watching the NFL playoffs.<\/p>\n

We notice again in February but within a few weeks March Madness, (college basketball\u2019s edition of the Super Bowl), is upon us and the NBA gets put on the back burner again.<\/p>\n

An NCAA champ is crowned and again we pay attention to see who made the NBA playoffs. But the baseball season opens in early April and honestly aren\u2019t we more interested in the Dodgers than anything basketball has to offer.<\/p>\n

The playoffs begin but for the most part they\u2019re a bore. How many times do we have to see the Atlanta Hawks get knocked out of the post season before we change the channel? The Utah Jazz always make the playoffs but they also always get eliminated. It gets old after awhile.<\/p>\n

This year the LeBron James story was intriguing. How far could he take the Cavaliers? Can he single handedly lead Cleveland to a championship? But once the Cavs got knocked out, it was forgotten. It was back to the Dodgers and for our friends in the OC \u2013 the Angels.<\/p>\n

However when the Lakers officially bounced the Phoenix Suns last Saturday night, the NBA became relevant again. Yes it definitely regained our attention.<\/p>\n

It became interesting not because the Lakers had made it to the NBA Finals, but because the Lakers will be playing the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Lakers-Celtics is a rivalry like no other \u2013 especially on the professional level.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the glitz and glamour of LA against the grit and grind of Boston. It\u2019s Red Auerbach and an aged dilapidated Boston Garden against Jack Kent Cooke and the Fabulous Forum. It\u2019s Bill Russell against Wilt Chamberlain and John Havlicek against Jerry West.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Don Nelson lucky game winning bounce against a Magic Johnson game winning baby sky hook.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the great Larry Bird scowling as he cans another jumper and his nemesis Johnson throwing a no look bullet pass to wide open teammate for a basket.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Kevin McHale clothes lining Kurt Rambis and M.L. Carr waving a towel over his head in celebration. It\u2019s also Michael Cooper burying a three and pointing at the Celtic bench and Johnson throwing down a dunk that prompted announcer and noted Boston\u00a0 homer Tommy Heinsohn to say at the time that Magic was telling the Celtics \u201cYou are done man!\u201d as he jammed it through the hoop.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s respect but also a distinct dislike for each other. It\u2019s the Yankees \u2013 Red Sox in short pants. Except when these two hook up it\u2019s for all the marbles.<\/p>\n

The Lakers and Celtics have won a combined 32 championships between them with Boston winning 17 of them. They\u2019ve met 11 times in the Finals and it\u2019s usually the Celtics who walk off happy.<\/p>\n

Boston has won 9 of the 11 meetings. The Lakers didn\u2019t beat Boston for the first time until 1985. They should have won the \u201984 series but a nightmare named Gerald Henderson got in the way.<\/p>\n

The last time these two met was a forgettable one for the Lakers. They were humiliated by 39 points in series clinching win in Boston in 2008.<\/p>\n

Talk about humiliating. Did you know that Cooke decorated the Forum rafters with balloons before a game seven with Boston in 1969 to be released in celebration once the Lakers won? There was only one problem. The Lakers lost. Laker fans to this day still rue the thought of Auerbach lighting up and smirking as the Celtics partied.<\/p>\n

So for the next two weeks, sit back and settle in. It\u2019s Lakers- Celtics and it doesn\u2019t get any better. We\u2019ve been waiting for this since October. The NBA matters again. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I like the Lakers in seven. Forgive me if I don\u2019t blow up any victory balloons before the last game is played.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my principle.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tspeterson32@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NBA just got interesting again. The season starts in October when football is in full swing and we forget about it for the next three months while we\u2019re watching the NFL playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12817],"tags":[3094,3091,3096,3092,3093,2041,3095,3098,3099,639,288,3100,3097,3101,3090,2042],"class_list":["post-7068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fanview","category-petersonprince","tag-bill-russell","tag-boston-garden","tag-don-nelson","tag-fabulous-forum","tag-jack-kent-cooke","tag-jerry-west","tag-john-havlicek","tag-kevin-mchale","tag-kurt-rambis","tag-larry-bird","tag-lebron-james","tag-m-l-carr","tag-magic-johnson","tag-michael-cooper","tag-red-auerbach","tag-wilt-chamberlain"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7068"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59559,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068\/revisions\/59559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}