OPINION

By Sean Deveney

updated 1:08 a.m. ET Dec. 25, 2008

Sean Deveney

There's a great moment in Casablanca when Ugarte (played by the always creepy Peter Lorre) says to Rick Blaine, "You despise me, don't you?" Says Rick (played by Bogey, of course): "If I gave you any thought, I probably would."

This moment is well-applied to sporting rivalries. There's no better way to infuriate a team that considers itself your rival, a team that everyone expects you to despise, than to simply say, "If we ever gave them any thought, we probably would."

This has been the subtext of the posturing between the Lakers and Celtics over the last few months, ever since the Celtics wiped the Garden floor with the Lakers in a 39-point Game 6 rout to finish the NBA Finals. The Lakers have been foaming at the mouth, looking for revenge.

Sasha Vujacic has gone on his anti-green campaign in Los Angeles. I called Luke Walton for a Q-and-A over the summer, and he asked that there be no questions about Boston, because he couldn't stand thinking about it. Even the stoic Phil Jackson admitted he'd be tuning in to watch Celtics-Lakers if he were not busy with coaching.

The Celtics? Hmmm, who are these Lakers you speak of? Why, we hadn't even thought about them.

Celtics fans, of course, were thinking about the Lakers, evidenced by the chant of, "Beat L.A." with five minutes to play in Tuesday's win over the Sixers.

As for the team? "I don't see the magnitude because I can't understand it," coach Doc Rivers told reporters.

"If we beat the Lakers, do we get anything for it?" Paul Pierce asked rhetorically after Tuesday's game. "Do we win another championship? Do we get another ring? No. It's just another game on the schedule we have to play."

There's good reason for the two teams' different attitudes. After all, the Celtics did win the championship last spring, which affords them the right to treat the Lakers like the over-eager little brother who wants to play with the big kids. They have no need to treat Thursday's game like anything other than a blip on the schedule. But the Lakers were admittedly embarrassed by the way things ended in the Finals.

Toss in the fact that the Celtics have won 19 straight and just set the NBA record for best start, at 27-2 — while the Lakers looked dominant for much of November and soft for much of December — and, again, the Celtics have reason to turn up their noses at the notion of a rivalry.

"This is about the Lakers," said L.A. great and TNT analyst Magic Johnson. "They can prove to themselves that they can handle the physical play of the Celtics. The last beating they took, 39 points, that should have left a sour taste in their mouths. I have been closed out [of the playoffs] four times, but at least we were fighting 'til the end. But that was an embarrassment for the Lakers. These guys have to come out and prove something to themselves."

Johnson went on to say that there's extra pressure on young big man Andrew Bynum, who missed last year's playoffs with a knee injury. For months, Johnson said, the Lakers have pointed to Bynum's absence as the reason they got pushed around in the Finals. They can't do that now. If anything, it's the Celtics who are a bit thin up front, with P.J. Brown retired and Glen Davis out after a car accident.

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If the Celtics aren't treating this game as a rivalry showdown, then maybe the presence of Bynum and some physical play from the Lakers — part of their game they seemed to rediscover in walloping the Hornets in New Orleans on Tuesday — will change that once the game starts. The Lakers have, in varying degrees, expressed some disdain for the Celtics. The Celtics have not returned the feeling. Yet.

"Is the hatred there?" Johnson said. "I think it is getting there. There is a lot of dislike there. I think Christmas Day, you are going to see a lot of it."

And if the Celtics show the Lakers the proper amount of hatred, if they finally show they do despise the Lakers this Christmas, there will be no denying we've got a rivalry on our hands.

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