Lakers Versus Celtics Once Again Takes The NBA To A Whole Other Level
The Boston Celtics will face the Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday night at the Staples for game six of the 2010 NBA Finals which will be telecast on ABC at 9:00 pm EDT. Of course the game will be broadcast live all over the Planet; a fact that we take for granted. But there was a period of time when the NBA Championship series was broadcast on a taped delayed basis at 11:30 pm and New York Vinnie is not talking about the early days of TV when the technology had yet to be invented.
This was back in early eighties when the series was broadcast on CBS and the Network did not think it was necessary to put the games on live because the ratings were terrible. So the Network put the games on usually about two and a half to four hours after the game had actually started. New York Vinnie remembers that Magic Johnson getting his first NBA Championship was on tape delay as was the same the next season when Larry Bird would win his first NBA Title.
Those two players and their respective teams; the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics were the reason why CBS went back to showing the Finals live. TV ratings started going up as Johnson and Bird basically took the NBA out of the sewer and put them on an evening playing field with the NFL and Major League Baseball. Those two cats pretty much saved the NBA and the Michael Jordan came in and started getting attention and the Association grew healthy and prosperous.
Beginning in 1980 NBA Finals either Los Angeles, Boston or sometimes both were in every edition of the series until the 1989 Finals. And folks across the country picked one or the other team to root for. Celtics fans can not stand a Lakers fan and the same holds true in reverse. Bird and Johnson brought back fans to the NBA who had lost interest years before and more importantly brought new fans to the sport.
Thirty years later the rivalry is no less intense as the Celtics and Lakers have shown in this series. Boston leads 3-2 after game five and that means the Lakers have to win out to grab their second straight Larry O’Brien Trophy. Through the first five games this series has been incredible; even for those of us who do not have a rooting interest in the series. What we have been witnessing is two heavyweight boxers going toe to toe every game. Its like Ali and Frazier except a whole lost less bloody.
This has been a tough year for the NBA in a lot of ways: The Arenas gun incident, Allen Iverson signing a contract with the Memphis Grizzlies and leaving after less than a month just top the list. There was a boatload of Crappolla that floated through the NBA in this soon to be completed season. But after this series most NBA fans will forget about the garbage and instead will remember a great series pitting two Champions against each other. And after every game you could truly believe that the players left everything they had out on the floor.









New York Vinnie will never start a fight, but he's not afraid to finish one.. Mess with New York Vinnie and he'll rip your nuts off and throw them down the sewer!