Before 1987, the two teams met on nine separate occasions to decide the basketball champion of the world, including an amazing six times in the 1960s.

Since 1987, however, the once-heated (and that's an understatement) Lakers-Celtics rivalry has ground almost to a halt. Mind you, Los Angeles kept rolling until only recently, winning five titles between 1988 and 2002. It was the guys in green that fell off most dramatically. Between 1994 and 2001, Boston only made the playoffs once. The last three seasons have been playoff-free as well.

At the end of 2006-07, a return to the glory days in both cities seemed a longer shot than Giacomo... ridden by Buster Douglas. First, there were the dysfunctional Lakers, who finished 42-40 and lost in the first round of the playoffs.

"Do it and do it now," Kobe Bryant said, calling for changes after his team was eliminated by the Phoenix Suns. "Personally for me, it's beyond frustration – three years and still being at ground zero. This summer's a big summer. We have to see what direction we want to take as an organization and make those steps and make them now."

The Celtics went 24-58, so their year didn't go too well either.

"You know, fitting end," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after losing to Detroit to close things out. "That's how the season has gone."

Then came July 31, the day it all changed. That was the day Kevin Garnett was traded to Boston from Minnesota for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, picks, cash and Red Auerbach's leftover cigars.

All of a sudden, the Celtics featured three superstars – K.G., Paul Pierce and Ray Allen – the latter of whom came to Beantown via a trade with Seattle a couple of months earlier. Boston then signed a few other key pieces, like veterans Eddie House and James Posey, to complement youngsters Rajon Rondo and Leon Powe. Shortly after that, they won their first eight games of the season and 29 of their first 32. Today, they sit at 64-16 and will be the top seed in the Eastern Conference when the playoffs start on April 19.

Meanwhile, in La-La Land, the Lakers did some bulking up of their own. On Feb. 1, they traded Kwame Brown and others to Memphis for Pau Gasol. Add to the equation the emergence of center Andrew Bynum, not to mention the NBA's second-leading scorer (behind LeBron James) in Bryant, and Los Angeles is looking good for its first regular-season conference title since 2000. After taking out New Orleans on Friday and San Antonio on Saturday, if the Lakers beat Sacramento on Tuesday, they'll earn the top playoff seed in the West.

Put it all together and the Celtics are the heavy 4/7 favorites to emerge from the East and the Lakers are the 2/1 favorites to take the West. If the oddsmakers are right, both will meet in the 2008 NBA finals.

Granted, most of today's players weren't even out of grade school when Los Angeles last took on Boston in the playoffs. Some weren't even alive. But think again if you believe the rivalry is too old to matter.

"I hated those [expletives]," Bryant, who grew up in Philadelphia, said in November. "I couldn't stand them, man. Are you kidding me? Bird. McHale. Ainge. Ainge was like a little pest, man. I couldn't stand the guy.

"But you grow older and you understand that it's just beautiful basketball. As a kid, you just don't like them. But then, as you get older, you understand the beauty and the rivalry and the sense of appreciation that you have for it."

According to Garnett, "If you don't know about the Lakers-Celtics history, then you really don't know basketball."

The possibility of even more beautiful basketball involving the two most storied franchises in professional hoops should be one of the biggest stories this NBA playoffs.