Paul Pierce bled Los Angeles Lakers purple and gold as a kid. The Inglewood, Calif. native lived just minutes from the Lakers' old home of the Forum. The Boston Celtics? Ah man, Pierce hated the Celtics with a passion.
But that was then. And now the only thing standing between Pierce and his first NBA title is his beloved Lakers.
"It means everything to Boston fans," Pierce said. "To me, I think that's what pretty much got me started in basketball, growing up in Los Angeles, watching the Lakers and the Celtics, and it's ironic, just being a Celtic, growing up, now you're playing against the Lakers in The Finals.
"As a kid, I hated the Celtics [laughter]. I'm going back home to play against my team that I grew up watching."
The Celtics-Lakers rivalry is between the two most storied franchises in NBA history and arguably the best in all of sports (although Red Sox and Yankees fans would strongly disagree). The Celtics have 16 championships. The Lakers have 14.
The Celtics-Lakers rivalry has died down dramatically since the retirement of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the early 1990s, but of all people, the kid from Inglewood breathed life back into it.
Pierce scored 12 of his team-high 27 points to lead the Celtics to an 89-81 Game 6 series-clinching victory in the Eastern Conference finals. After the game, the kid from Inglewood led the chant of, "Beat L.A., Beat L.A" with his Boston teammates. While Pierce will always be a kid from Inglewood, times have changed. He bleeds green now.
"It's a dream come true, man, just thinking about it. I think that rivalry really revolutionized the game of basketball, and now I'm a part of it."
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