Background
The seeds of the 1984 Finals were first sown during the 1979 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. In the final game of the tournament, Larry Bird and his erstwhile unbeaten Indiana State Sycamores lost to Magic Johnson and his Michigan State Spartans by the score of 75-64. After the tournament, both entered the NBA in the 1979–80 season with high expectations. Bird, who was selected 6th in the 1978 NBA Draft but committed back to Indiana State for his senior season, was named Rookie of the Year after leading the Celtics to a 32-game turnaround from the previous year, going from 29 to 61 wins. The expected Celtics-Lakers finals, however, never happened. The Philadelphia 76ers defeated the Celtics in the conference finals before losing to the Lakers in the 1980 NBA Finals, with Johnson earning Finals MVP honors for his Game 6 performance. Since then Bird won a championship in 1981, then Magic led the Lakers to the finals in 1982 and 1983, winning in the former.
In the 1983–84 season, the Celtics won 62 games, while the Lakers won 54, topping their respective conferences. In the playoffs, the Celtics defeated the Bullets in four, the Knicks in seven, and the Bucks in five, while the Lakers defeated the Kings in three, the Mavericks in five, and the Suns in six, thus rekindling the Celtics–Lakers rivalry in the Finals. Larry Bird earned his first MVP award.
While Bird was out to redeem himself, the Lakers as a team were also seeking retribution after losing all seven Finals matchups to the Celtics, the last coming in 1969.
Read more about this topic: 1984 NBA Finals
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