All through the 1986-87 NBA season, the Los Angeles Lakers had redemption on their minds after losing in the Western Conference Finals the year before to the Houston Rockets.
L.A. won a league-high 65 games and blitzed through the opening rounds of the playoffs to reach the NBA Finals for the sixth time in the past eight years.
None other than the Boston Celtics were waiting for it there. The two teams had split two championship matchups in 1984 and 1985, and 1987 would be the rubber match that would help determine which one would be the team of the 1980s.