NBA

Laker fever is taking over LA once again, as the NBA Finals this year feature one of the fiercest basketball rivalries in history - the Los Angeles Lakers v. the Boston Celtics. Bring it!

A few months ago, I watched a cool documentary on HBO, Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals. It captures the decades of intense rivalry between NBA legends Ervin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird. The film chronicles their renowned competition starting from their college days facing each other in the 1979 NCAA championship game between Michigan State and Indiana State, respectively. It carries them through their NBA careers, playing for (you guessed it), the Lakers and the Celtics, respectively, when both teams dominated and transformed the sport in the 1980s. A story of opposites in many ways, it is also a story of the unlikely friendship that can develop between people with a shared experience. The film is a great travel down the court for any basketball fan and aired in conjunction with Bird and Johnson's joint (with Jackie MacMullan) book release, When the Game Was Ours.

Although living in LA for as long as I have means I turn up to cheer on the Lakers at pivotal moments, I confess that my heart still belongs to the east coast of my youth, and the sometimes hapless New York Knicks. That is why I was so excited to also recently screen Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks on ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary series. In another fantastic NBA rivalry, we jump to the mid-1990s as Miller's Indiana Pacers battle the Knicks - an epic conflict between America's Heartland and The Big City. What a fun ride remembering Miller and #1 Knicks fan Spike Lee trash-talk and psych each other out during their pivotal and theatrical matchups. Check it out during an upcoming repeat.

Basketball is nothing if not entertaining, and once again, documentaries help us relive all the fun on and off the court.