Boston created heartache for Los Angeles, especially Jerry West, until the Lakers' magical run in 1985.

If, as Jerry West says, the NBA's greatest rivalry wasn't a rivalry at first since the Lakers never won in the '60s and the Boston Celtics never lost, it already seemed bigger than mere life or death, at least in West's life.

Nor did the zeal diminish in their '80s rematches when the Showtime Lakers and the Larry Bird Celtics battled on even terms.

It was the alpha and omega of rivalries, encompassing all human emotions, starting, of course, with hate.

The Lakers hated the Celtics and their blustering leader, Red Auerbach, but then who didn't?

No one hated Auerbach more than Lakers Coach Pat Riley, whose movie star looks masked his knife-between-the-teeth drive. Riley believed every horror story about Red, once ordering his team's water barrel emptied in Boston Garden.

LAKERS-CELTICS NBA FINALS THROUGH THE YEARS


1984

1985

1987

1960s

Riley wanted his players to hate everything about the Celtics, gathering his players to ask if they knew what a Celtic was.

"Finally, Kareem raised his hand," Riley wrote. "He said the Celtics were a warring race of Danes.

"I had to explain that they were also a cunning, secretive race."

Of course, Riley was Irish but he was a Laker first.

Not that you had to be paranoid since the teams were messing with each other.

Fans besieged the Lakers' hotel in Boston with phone calls, waking up sleeping players -- which Riley blamed on the Celtics for giving out their location. Lakers officials were delegated to wake up Boston players in their hotel here.

Happily, the fear and loathing ran second to respect that grew into reverence among the participants, or at least some of them.

After the Celtics' Game 7 victory in 1969, John Havlicek hugged West, who played for the Lakers with a sore hamstring wrapped like the leg of a mummy, telling him, "I love you."

Bill Russell flew out for West's farewell ceremony, announcing, "If I could have one wish in life granted, it would be that you would always be happy."

By the '80s, the two teams needed each other as they needed air and water.

Bird and Magic Johnson lived to beat the other from the start when they were bitter rivals to the finish when they were close friends.

When Bird retired, Johnson flew East and donned a Celtics jersey for his retirement ceremony, whereupon Bird told him, "Magic, get out of my dreams!"

Bird presented Johnson at his Hall of Fame induction, noting, "I was going to speak from my heart but, man, he broke my heart so many times, do I have anything left?"

Sentiment ended at the tipoff. After the Celtics' Game 4 win in the Forum in the 1984 Finals, Bird, on the bus, saw Johnson slouch past, looking devastated. Said Bird later: "I thought, 'Suffer.' "

One time or another, they all did.