Lakers–Celtics rivalry
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Lakers prepares for his final jump ball against the Boston Celtics at the Garden on December 16, 1988.
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| First meeting | November 9, 1948 | ||
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| Latest meeting | March 3, 2017 (Staples Center) |
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| Next meeting | November 8, 2017 (TD Garden) |
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| Statistics | |||
| Meetings total | 359 meetings | ||
| All-time series | 200–159 (.557) Boston | ||
| Regular season series | 157–128 (.551) Boston | ||
| Postseason results | 43–31 (.581) Boston | ||
| Longest win streak | |||
| Current win streak | BOS W3 | ||
| Post-season history | |||
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The Celtics–Lakers rivalry is a National Basketball Association (NBA) rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Both the Celtics and the Lakers are the two most storied franchises in the NBA, and the rivalry has been called the best in the NBA. The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers have met a record 12 times in the NBA Finals, starting with their first Finals meeting in 1959. They would both go on to dominate the league in the 1960s and 1980s, facing each other six times in the 1960s, three times in the 1980s, and two times in the late 2000s.
The rivalry had been less intense since the retirements of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the early 1990s, but in 2008 it was renewed as the Celtics, led by the big three of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Lakers, led by NBA MVP Kobe Bryant met in the Finals for the first time since 1987, with the Celtics winning the series 4–2. They met again in the 2010 NBA Finals, which the Lakers won in 7 games. The two teams have won the two highest numbers of championships, the Celtics 17, the Lakers 16 (11 as the L.A. Lakers and 5 as the Minneapolis Lakers); together, they account for 33 of the 70 championships in NBA history.
As of 2010, the Lakers and Celtics have met 12 times in the NBA Finals. To date, Boston has won nine series, including all of the first eight, while Los Angeles has won three of the last four.
During the first decade of the NBA in the 1950s, the Minneapolis Lakers had the first NBA dynasty. Minneapolis would win the first ever Championship Series of the newly formed NBA in 1950 (three BAA Finals were played between 1947–1949 and retroactively counted as NBA Championships, one of which was won by the Lakers in 1949). Under Hall of Fame head coach John Kundla, and with the NBA's first superstar in George Mikan, they would win three more titles in 1952,1953, and 1954. The Celtics would emerge behind early NBA star Bob Cousy by winning the 1957 NBA Finals and losing in 1958.
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