{"id":128151,"date":"2025-03-11T16:18:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T20:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=128151"},"modified":"2025-03-11T16:18:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T20:18:28","slug":"celtics-lakers-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/11\/celtics-lakers-rivalry\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics Lakers Rivalry Is the Only Thing That Can Save the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers are two of the most successful franchises in the NBA. The Celtics won their record 18th title last year while the Lakers have 17 titles. The Celtics-Lakers rivalry has marked almost every decade. From Bill Russell<\/a> and Jerry West<\/a>\u00a0to Larry Bird<\/a> and Magic Johnson<\/a>, these two teams have battled in the finals a record 12 times.<\/p>\n

Celtics Lakers Rivalry Is the Only Thing That Can Save the NBA<\/h2>\n

The first time the two teams met in the Finals was in 1959. They dominated the league in the 1960s and the 1980s. Their most recent matchups in the Finals were in 2008 and 2010. The NBA recently released the ratings for the last time these two played a regular season game.<\/p>\n

According to the NBA<\/a>, the March 8th game between the two averaged 4.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched regular season NBA game in seven years (excluding Christmas games). The broadcast was up 92% from last year\u2019s comparable game window. The game peaked at 5.3 million viewers between 9:15 and 9:29 pm ET. The game was available on ABC, ESPN+ and Disney+.<\/p>\n

Fans Started Conspiracy Theories<\/h3>\n

NBA fans are some of the craziest fans in the world. The latest news about the Celtics-Lakers rivalry ratings shows it. Some of the comments<\/a> on social media<\/a> under the posts are that Adam Silver and the NBA forced the Luka Doncic<\/a> trade to the Lakers.<\/p>\n

The theory suggests that with the NBA ratings down several years in a row, the NBA needed a bright young star<\/a> in Los Angeles to get ratings back up. Fan theories go as far as suggesting the NBA should try and do anything in its power to make sure the Celtics and the Lakers make it to the finals. That way, the ratings for the finals will be way up. Of course, even neutral fans would love a Game 7 in Boston between these two storied franchises with Luka, Jayson Tatum<\/a>, Jaylen Brown<\/a>, and LeBron James<\/a> battling it out to the final buzzer.<\/p>\n

Celtics Lakers Finals Preview?<\/h3>\n

Here is an interesting stat. As of March 11, the Lakers and Celtics are both 8-2 in their last ten games. The Boston Celtics<\/a> are all but guaranteed to finish second in the Eastern Conference, giving them a relatively easy path to the Finals. Their biggest challenge should be the Cleveland Cavaliers. The third-seed New York Knicks so far haven\u2019t had an answer for the Celtics.<\/p>\n

The Lakers, on the other hand, have a tougher challenge. With the latest injury to LeBron James<\/a>, the Lakers have fallen in the standings. They lost two games in a row, and they are now the third seed in the Western Conference. If the slide and loss continue, they can fall down to the fifth seed, or maybe even lower. The difference between the third seed and the fifth seed is a single game. The Rockets in the fifth seed have the same amount of wins, one game less, and two more losses. The Grizzlies in fourth have one more win and one more loss.<\/p>\n

If the Celtics and Lakers make it back to the finals, it will be a new chapter in their rivalry. If the Celtics and the Lakers do not meet in the finals by 2029, it would be the first time since the 1970s that the two teams haven’t played each other in the finals for an entire decade. They played each other in the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 2000s, and 2010s (only once in 2010, but it still counts).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers are two of the most successful franchises in the NBA. The Celtics won their record 18th title last year while the Lakers have 17 titles. The Celtics-Lakers rivalry has marked almost every decade. From Bill Russell and Jerry West\u00a0to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, these two teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":128159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,5,26,62],"tags":[2101,450,798,2049,455,38,1133,755],"class_list":["post-128151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-celtics","category-lakers","category-nba","tag-bill-russell","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-jerry-west","tag-larry-bird","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-magic-johnson"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128151"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128160,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128151\/revisions\/128160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}