Bird, Magic talk Finals

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated.

You can tell they’re old friends.

“It’s always a pleasure to be on the phone with Larry,” Magic Johnson said at the start of a conference call with Larry Bird and members of the media this afternoon. “It was great to be able to play against him so many times.”

The two NBA legends, each recognizable by his first name and each still equated to his former team almost two decades after retiring, have gotten plenty of face time on ESPN Classic this week. With the Celtics and Lakers meeting in the NBA Finals Thursday for the first time in 21 years, Larry and Magic are back in the spotlight.

Even if Bird doesn’t want to be.

“I really felt bad about doing this press conference,” Bird said, saying he didn’t want to take away from the current players. “I’m just happy to see these new Lakers in the championships with these new Celtics .It’s really not about us. It’s about what these guys have built.”

What the current Lakers and Celtics have built are championship contenders. The No. 1 seeds from their respective conferences are generating a Finals buzz that hasn’t been seen in years.

“I think it’s great for the league,” said Bird. “It’s great for basketball.”

Johnson agreed, saying that although a lot of time has passed, the game will benefit from this matchup.

“Even though the names of the players and coaches have changed, when you think about fans around the world in terms of basketball, and you ask them what they’d like to see in the Finals, they would look at these teams,” Johnson said.

One of the week’s hotly debated topics has been whether the current Lakers-Celtics matchup can be called a rivalry. More than two decades have passed since these teams last met in the Finals.

“Every great franchise must go through down times,” said Johnson. “Both franchises went through down times, and now they’re back. When that ball goes up on Thursday, they’ll have their own rivalry. It’s for all the marbles. It’s for everything. It doesn’t matter whether they understand the rivalry or not. They will on Thursday night.”

Bird says it’s impossible for the players to ignore the name on the front of their jerseys.

“If you play for the Lakers or Celtics, or you’re drafted by them, it’s not going to take long for the media or the fans to tell you who was before you,” said Bird. “History followed you around. When two teams have that much history, it doesn’t take that long to figure it out.”

When asked to make his prediction for the series, Johnson, an unabashed Lakers fan, said the key to the series would be the play of Kevin Garnett/Ray Allen vs. Pau Gasol/Lamar Odom.

Bird, who is currently an executive for the Indiana Pacers, is usually a little more careful about taking sides. But after giving his usual, “The team that plays better will win the series,” the Celtics legend slipped in his prediction.

“I’m really happy for Danny Ainge and the Celtics,” he said. “And I look forward to them winning another championship.”