The Lakers and Celtics

   One of the highlights of any Basketball season is any game between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, clearly these two teams have carved out a great rivalry over the years. How far back has this great rivalry gone?

  On February 27, 1959, the two teams gathered at the Boston Garden for one of the great games of the 1950s. The Lakers had yet to move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles by this time. The Celtics were without the services of future Hall of Famer Bill Russell, who had an injured leg. The Celtics had to depend on the play of Bob Cousy and Tommy Heinsohn as well as rookie Billy Sharman. Cousy had 28 points and 31 assists. Heinsohn had a game high 43 points and Sharman had 29 points. The previous assists mark was 21. Cousy had 19 assists in the second half as the Celtics scored 90 points and 12 assists during the 52-44 fourth quarter.

   The Celtics 173-139 win broke the previous one team record by 27 points, the two team record by 30 points. The Lakers set a record for most points in a losing cause. The Celtics tied the record for most points in a single half with 83 points in the first half and then broke the record in the second half. The one thing that really stands out here is that this was one of many great games these two teams have played over the year.   
 
     The answer to yesterdays trivia question is 707 minutes of penalties were handed out within the first five minutes of a game in the Kontinental Hockey League game of January 9, 2010 between Vityaz Chekhov and Avangard Omsk. During the fight 33 players and both coaches were ejected. Only 4 players remained in the game. The officials had to order the game to be called off. Todays trivia question is the Lakers and the Celtics have played 348 games together in history to date, who leads the rivalry and how many games have they won? The answer in tomorrows daily blog about the last Olympic hockey game be played to date.