Pistons-Celtics-Lakers

You had to be there. Cobo Arena, the Detroit riverfront, mid-1960s. The Palace, Auburn Hills, late-1980s. Charlie and Helen's living room, the Cumberland Plateau, 2008. Sawyer Auditorium, La Crosse, Wisconsin, late 1950s. Our driveway, anytime.

It was only fitting that the NBA playoffs were on ESPN while I was in Tennessee recently, and my Dad and I got to watch a couple of games between the Pistons and the Celtics. It was the rough and ready present-day Pistons, assembled by general manager Joe Dumars, the good guy of the Bad Boys of the 1990s, against the new-look Celtics, put together by general manager Danny Ainge, the irritant of the Bird-McHale-Parrish Celtics of the 1980s.

My Dad and I speak a kind of basketball shorthand: mention a player's name and it immediately evokes an entire lineup, plus coach, rivalries, successes, failures, who went to college where, and what a character so-and-so was. The theater of my youth and the man who introduced me to the game.

This year the Boston Celtics of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, et al., prevailed over the Detroit Pistons of Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, et al., but it took seven games, so Detroit can hold its head high. Which means Boston goes on to the finals against Kobe and the Lakers, the made-for-TV matchup that has the network hypesters of hoops creaming their jeans with comparisons to Magic, Kareem, and Worthy versus Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parrish. It is showtime indeed.

Seeing this group, you can't help but think about an earlier generation of great teams with a different combination of skills and temperaments. Take the Pistons of the Isiah Thomas-Bill Laimbeer era - please. With the peerless rebounder Dennis Rodman (before the tattoos and technicolor hair), the enforcer Rick Mahorn, the low-key Dumars, and other role players, they were an oddly balanced bunch.

How about the in-your-face speed of the Celtics when they had John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, and Jo Jo White. A generation earlier, of course, was the classic Celtic team of Coach Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, Satch Sanders, Tom Heinsohn, and several decent players who became better by being around them. Before that the Celtics were already perennial champions with Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, and the memorable Jim Luskitoff. Jim who? You know, Luskitoff, their hatchet man, who came in for a few minutes each game to put the muscle on the opposing team's hot scorer, knock him around a little, pick up a couple of fouls, and sit down.

Dad and I watched all these guys - in person, on TV - and felt like we knew them personally because we knew their work, their play, their weak spots, their basketball IQ. He started taking me to high school and college games when I was still learning to dribble, and La Crosse State had some good teams. Gar Ammerman and Gary Parker were a dynamite pair of guards one year. Why do I remember these names?

For the same reasons I remember seeing Elgin Baylor of the Lakers score 56 points in a game against the Pistons in the old Olympia Stadium, which was really a hockey arena, but they hadn't built Cobo yet, and the Pistons had just arrived from Fort Wayne. Elgin later teamed with Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain on one of the all-time great Laker teams. Why did we like the Lakers? Because before Los Angeles, they were the Minneapolis Lakers, of course. You remember George Mikan, right? Vern Mickelson? Hot Rot Hundley? Household names.

So the game is on, and we go on like this for a while, and Dad brings up Bill Bradley. Now here is an exemplary human being, and he hands me a copy of John McPhee's book A Sense of Where You Are, about Bradley's years at Princeton, and we remember his teammates on the New York Knicks of the early 1970s: Dave DeBusschere (University of Detroit, former Piston), Willis Reed (Grambling?), Jerry Lucas (Ohio State, former Cincinnati Royal), Walt Frazier (Southern Illinois), Earl the Pearl Monroe (Winston-Salem), and Phil Jackson, who must have learned something sitting on the bench, because now he's the mastermind coach of the Lakers (not to mention Michael Jordan's coach at the Bulls, but that's another story).

Have I missed anyone? Yes, I've left out hundreds of players, many of whom I've forgotten, and most of the teams, some of which don't exist anymore, but this is already way too esoteric. I mean who pays attention to these things, but I guess that's the point. There's a game on in the other room as I write this, and I sort of care whether this group of Celtics can beat this group of Lakers, and it's Father's Day, and I appreciate the connection.