Bernucca: Rooting for the Celtics to beat Heat, preserve an “unbreakable” record

I will be rooting for the Boston Celtics against the Miami Heat tonight.

Having been a Philadelphia 76ers fan for nearly four decades, that’s a pretty big deal. Usually there are only three circumstances that can get me to throw my allegiance behind a team I have despised for as long as I’ve watched the NBA.

1. By winning, the Celtics would beat a team whose loss would help the 76ers.

2. By winning, the Celtics would get a tougher playoff opponent.

3. By winning, the Celtics would prevent a zombie apocalypse.

But tonight, the Celtics have a chance to preserve one of the most cherished records in sports. If they beat the Heat, the 33-game winning streak of the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers retains its “unbreakable” status.

There are a handful of records in sports that never will be broken, simply because the sport itself has changed so much. Richard Petty won 200 NASCAR races when the circuit was less competitive and used to run 125-mile events on Tuesday nights. UCLA won 88 straight men’s college basketball games when freshmen had to wait a year to play, rather than play a year and leave. To surpass Johnny Vander Meer, you have to pitch three straight no-hitters in an era where three straight complete games is a rarity.

The Lakers’ streak is the one “unbreakable” record most near and dear to me, because the 1971-72 season was my introduction to the NBA. The players I first read about were Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West. I would read the sports section of the New York Daily News every day, hoping the West Coast games had made it into that edition. And the first game I ever attended was Game 3 of the 1972 Finals at Madison Square Garden, where I went down to the baseline and was within 10 feet of my heroes, totally awestruck.

As many folks know, the streak began very early that season. It began immediately after Elgin Baylor announced his retirement with the Lakers owning a 6-3 record. Rookie Jim McMillian was inserted in the starting lineup alongside Chamberlain, West, Gail Goodrich and Happy Hairston, and the Lakers took off.

For more than two months, the Lakers didn’t lose. In fact, they rarely came close to losing. They began with a 110-106 victory over the Baltimore Bullets, the smallest margin of the streak. They were pushed to overtime once by Phoenix but ultimately won that game by nine points. They dropped 139 on Seattle, 143 on Philadelphia and another 154 on Philadelphia.

The Lakers won 24 games by double digits, including seven by at least 20, three by at least 30 and two by at least 40. They beat every team except Cincinnati. The streak began with three wins in three nights, a trick they turned four times, none of which were a homestand. Fifteen of the wins came against teams that won at least 47 games that season.

The streak obliterated the previous mark of 20 set one season earlier by the Milwaukee Bucks, who ultimately ended the run. Until the Houston Rockets ran off 22 straight wins five years ago, no team had even come within two-thirds of the Lakers’ record.

That is where the Heat stand now. They still have a long way to go to get to 34 in a row, but a look at their schedule reveals that it is not out of the realm of possibility. Between now and the potential record-breaker April 9 vs. Milwaukee, Miami plays seven teams headed for the lottery.

The Heat do visit Chicago on March 27 and host New York on April 2. Those teams are a combined 3-2 vs. Miami this season. But they also are severely shorthanded and do not look capable of putting up much of a fight right now.

Most observers have targeted two games where Miami appears vulnerable: Tonight in Boston, where the Heat can claim the second-longest streak in history all to themselves, and March 31 in San Antonio, where the Heat can run their streak to a highly threatening 30 wins.