For the Warriors’ two SoCal kids, Klay Thompson and Steve Kerr, there’s a little something extra about facing the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.
Kerr grew up in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, watching Magic Johnson and the Lakers face off with Larry Bird and the Celtics in the Finals three times during the 1980s.
“I was sitting literally in the last row of the Forum when Kevin McHale took out Kurt Rambis and changed the series,” Kerr said at Wednesday’s media session, recalling the famous 1984 series that Boston won in seven games.
By the third matchup, Klay Thompson’s father Mychal had joined the Lakers and helped Los Angeles win the 1987 series in six games. Surely, Thompson grew up hearing all about the history of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, especially after the two faced off against each other in the Finals again in 2008 and 2010.
And once Thompson made it to the NBA himself in 2011, it was facing those Celtics that made it hit home that he had arrived in the league.
“My rookie year, just playing that team of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and KG, that was like a ‘welcome to the NBA’ moment for me,” Thompson said. “Because just a couple years before, I was watching them battle Kobe and Pau in the Finals, and I was just mesmerized by how great those teams were, both the Lakers and the Celtics.”
Kerr also described facing the Celtics — and specifically playing in the old Boston Garden — as some of his favorite memories from his playing career.
“I remember starting a game early in my career — we had a couple guys injured — and going out to half court and bumping fists,” Kerr said. “Larry Bird actually said, ‘Good luck, Steve.’ I was like, ‘You, too, Larry.’ I was like, what is happening right now? It was surreal.
“It was thrilling to be on the Garden floor. So there’s a mystique that exists with the Celtics for sure. Incredible franchise, incredible history. And for me, just having grown up watching those games and being a fan, it’s pretty cool to be coaching in the Finals against them.”
Mycal Thompson became a radio broadcaster with the team, allowing Klay to have a front-row seat for the two recent rivalry matchups — and giving him even more appreciation for facing the hated Celtics now.
“Life comes full circle, now being able to play them in the Finals,” Thompson said. “I was watching them in college, Game 7 at Staples with my dad in 2010. And now it’s 12 years later, and I get to play the team that I was rooting against. It’s amazing.”
While no matchup has the history of Lakers-Celtics, who have squared off a dozen times in the NBA Finals, this will be the second time the Warriors and Celtics meet on the league’s grand stage, following their 1964 meeting.
After moving from Philadelphia, the Warriors won the West in their second full season in San Francisco, setting up a matchup between Wilt Chamberlain and former University of San Francisco star Bill Russell. Chamberlain averaged 29.2 points and 27.6 rebounds per game and rookie Nate Thurmond added 11.2 points and 13 rebounds per game, but the Warriors lost the series in five games to the Celtics.
That championship was Boston’s sixth in a row at the time, building up to what is now 17 NBA titles. That’s tied for first … with the Los Angeles Lakers. While Lakers fans surely don’t love the Warriors, it sure beats supporting the Celtics, especially with the all-time record on the line.
Kerr believes current Finals setup ‘more fair’
It was in the middle of those 1980s Finals matchups between the Celtics and the Lakers that the NBA initially tweaked the structure of Finals games. Originally, the NBA used a 2-2-1-1-1 format: two home games in each city, followed by single alternative home games if necessary until the seventh game.
But in 1985, the league sought to reduce cross-country travel and brought the 2-3-2 format: two home games for the team who had home-court advantage, followed by three games at the other team’s arena, then a return for the final two games.
It was that format that Kerr played in during five trips to the NBA Finals as a player, but the league reverted back to 2-2-1-1-1 in 2014, just ahead of his five NBA Finals trips as a coach. In his eyes, one option is far better.
“I like 2-2-1-1-1 better,” Kerr said. “It’s a more fair format. And given that we have a couple of days in between every game, other than 3 and 4, I think both teams will be able to handle the travel. But it seems like a more fair test.”
Kerr added that it “didn’t seem right” that the team who had home-court advantage could drop one of the first two games at home, then have to play three road games in a row — and need to win one in order to get the advantage back. Kerr also noted that it “hardly ever happened” that the team with three straight home games won them all.
In fact, out of all of the series that were tied 1-1 after two games, there were more road teams to win all three of those games (1990 Pistons, 1991 Bulls, 2001 Lakers) and clinch the title than home teams (2004 Pistons, 2012 Heat).
