The Boston Celtics’ current NBA Finals series is apparently a referendum on their most bitter basketball rivalry as well.
Retired ex-Celtics star Cedric Maxwell spoke this week to Brian Windhorst of ESPN and got in a profane shot at retired former Los Angeles Lakers star James Worthy. The Celtics and the Lakers have one of the fiercest rivalries in sports. Both teams currently have 17 NBA titles each, but the Celtics can win No. 18 by defeating the Golden State Warriors in the Finals this year.
“They’re supposedly tied with us,” said Maxwell of the Lakers. “People say they’re the standard-bearer of the NBA but the Celtics have been that since the start. And James Worthy, after we win this championship, I want you to smell our a– as we’re going by.”
When it comes to championship count, the Celtics had the better of the Lakers for several decades. They surpassed the Lakers’ number of titles in 1963 and maintained a large lead through the end of the century, winning a whopping 16 championships in just under three decades from 1957 to 1986. But the Lakers have since closed the gap and are now tied with the Celtics on the all-time count after winning six titles (the latest of which came in 2020) to just one for the Celtics in the new millennium.
As for Maxwell and Worthy, they battled each other on the court when the Celtics-Lakers rivalry was at its peak in the 1980s. The Celtics won three titles that decade, and the Lakers won five (included three head-to-head Celtics-Lakers Finals). Maxwell got Finals MVP honors in 1981 before Worthy won Finals MVP in 1988.
Windhorst notes that Maxwell had been known for throwing shade at Worthy, both in the media and in private. Worthy has also had some memorable moments trashing the Celtics in recent years.
