On the eve of the Lakers-Celtics game, I decided to go to TD Garden even though I had no tickets. I wore a yellow Lakers beanie and an army jacket with a private’s patch long since removed. As tip off approached, I decided to interact with some fans outside the arena, as I resisted intrusive thoughts to sneak into the game and watch. I wanted to experience the famed rivalry firsthand through the crowd — to witness the best rivalry in basketball.
Outside the Garden, there was this fan decked out in Celtics regalia. He was interacting with Lakers and Celtics fans and businessmen like his life depended on it. It was as if he was paid by the Celtics to represent their fandom better than anybody else. As I approached him,we shook hands, and there was a shared moment of humanity and rivalry. It was really cool. There was banter, passion and pure love of the game. The rivalry and tension of the moment were powerful.
The whole night I had my eyes peeled for other Laker fans. Outside the Garden, I met what I thought was the Lakers equivalent of the Celtics fanatic. He was wearing golden regalia and a Dalton Knecht jersey and kept yelling at Celtics fans who were clearly uninterested. I side-eyed him. He told me that he wasn’t a Laker fan, which was shocking. Turns out he was a Philadelphia 76ers fan trying to rage bait people for social media. I guess you can’t believe anything these days.
I went into The Greatest Bar afterwards to watch the game. I scampered out after LeBron got injured. A fan wearing a Jayson Tatum jersey told me to never come back. I came home and watched the rest of the game on TV, which had quickly become uncompetitive, with the Celtics winning. I furiously pouted about my hatred for the Celtics, and I sat marinating in the undeniable frustration of all that had gone wrong that night. I certainly felt the pull of history and saw the Celtics leprechaun’s smile indelibly etched across my closed eyes when I laid in bed that night.
Two weeks passed; I went home and I found myself outside Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles in a sea of purple and gold. The Lakers had thrashed the Denver Nuggets and there were a lot of drunk Angelinos screaming in glee. One fan yelled some angry words about Boston, and the crowd echoed it back. I joined the chorus.
Over the last few weeks I’ve realized something about this rivalry of which I’m deeply proud. In an age where our lives are increasingly digitized, these moments where I can get lost in conflicting seas of passion are rare. Sports rivalries cannot be manufactured, they grow organically and lie deeply embedded in the fabric of a city. My grandpa told me that things have changed — that sports will never reach the same level of unrivaled passion and importance of his youth in New York because people simply have other options for entertainment. While he’s right, there are vestiges of old passion remaining in American professional sports — in these special moments, I feel truly alive.
Later that week a friend of mine who works for the Celtics reminded me that the Lakers are 3–9 in the finals against them. He says the Celtics live rent-free in the collective psyche of Lakers fans and players alike. I told him that nobody in L.A. wear “Beat MA” shirts. I think we both live rent-free in each other’s heads, though I maintain that Celtics fans need us more than we need them. But I learned that we need each other. We are codependent, inextricably bound by our history and love for basketball and our cities.
