In 1984 and 1985, basketball’s greatest rivalry was resurrected, as Magic Johnson led his Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Finals against Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics.
The Celtics won the championship in 1984, while the Lakers claimed the title in 1985, and in the spring of 1986, the nation was expecting a rubber match between arguably the two greatest teams in NBA history.
But first, both teams had to make their way through the early rounds of the playoffs.
L.A. swept the San Antonio Spurs in the first round, and although it ran into a little trouble in the second round, it dispatched the Dallas Mavericks in six games.
In the Western Conference Finals, the Lakers would go up against the Houston Rockets and their twin towers of Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon.
In Game 1, the Purple and Gold put on a clinic, as Johnson had 26 points, 18 assists, seven rebounds and three steals while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put up 31 points and three blocked shots to give Showtime a 119-107 win.
All season, Abdul-Jabbar had abused Sampson and Olajuwon. In the teams’ first meeting of the regular season, the big fella had 35 points, and he followed that up with 46 and 43 points in two later tilts with Houston that year.
Unfortunately, the Lakers wouldn’t maintain the high level of play they displayed in Game 1, as the Rockets devised a game plan to shut them down and took the next four games.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at LeBron Wire…