When it comes to rivalries in the NBA, there was nothing better than when the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers squared off in the 1980s. The teams genuinely disliked each other. Fights, hard fouls, and physical basketball were the norm.
The NBA craved Celtics vs. Lakers so much that it scheduled several preseason meetings between the two opposite-coast teams because they only met twice during the regular season. In every year of the 1980s, either the Celtics or the Lakers reached the NBA Finals. They faced each other three times. The Lakers finished with five titles in the decade, while the Celtics captured three championships.
Cedric Maxwell, a two-time Celtics champion in the decade, and rapper/actor Ice Cube, a longtime Lakers fan, talked about the bitter rivalry and rehashed some of the glory days during his appearance on the “Cedric Maxwell Podcast.”
Cedric Maxwell Says He Still Wants to ‘Throw Up’ When He Sees Former Lakers Players
When the Celtics and Lakers met in the 1980s, it was must-see basketball. There was no mingling between opposing players before or after games. Former Lakers guard Byron Scott pulled no punches when describing the scene when the teams met on the court.
“The one thing everybody has to understand is it was a true rivalry,” Scott said during his “Off the Dribble” podcast in 2022. “It’s not like today. You don’t have the true rivalries in the NBA like you did back in those days.
“We didn’t play ball with those guys in the summer. We didn’t play high school ball with them, and we didn’t play AAU ball with those guys. Those guys hated us. We hated them.
“The rivalry was real. It was legit. We couldn’t stand each other. We tried to beat them up. They tried to beat us up. In the midst of all that, we were trying to win a series.”
Maxwell, who still works for the Celtics as a radio analyst, gets queasy when he goes to LA and runs into some of his former Lakers opponents.
“I’ll tell you what, I don’t think I’ve ever hated people,” Maxwell said. “Hate’s a strong word, but when I saw Magic (Johnson), Coop (Michael Cooper), and (James) Worthy, I wanted to (expletive) throw up. Them dudes still piss me off right now.”
Ice Cube Said the Celtics Are Still On the Minds of the Lakers
Ice Cube is a die-hard basketball fan and loves his Lakers. In 2017, he launched the Big 3, a 3-on-3 basketball league featuring former NBA players. Cooper, a guard on the Lakers’ teams of the 1980s who won five NBA title in LA, is the coach of 3’s Company, one of the Big 3 squads.
Cube said Cooper was thinking about Boston while coaching his Big 3 team.
“We got our championship game there Sunday,” Ice Cube said on the podcast. “Michael Cooper’s coaching the championship game, and he’s coming to me, saying stuff like, ‘Hey, man, this is in Boston, so we gotta win this.’ I’m like, Coop, you’re not playing no more, man.
“You guys never quit. That’s the beauty of it.”
“We’re like old soldiers,” Maxwell said. “We don’t give it up. I have respect for ’em. I told somebody on the podcast earlier that I respect the hell out of Magic right now for what he’s done as an entrepreneur, for what he’s done for Black people, HIV, all that.
“I absolutely respect him, but then the guy turned around and said but how do you feel about him? I said I still hate his ass.”
Mike Thomas is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Boston Celtics. He previously worked as an NBA and NFL writer for Sportscasting and was the Sports Editor for The Herald News in Fall River, Massachusetts for 16 years. More about Mike Thomas
