Christmas Day’s Celtics vs. Lakers match-up has plenty of people looking forward to June.

So which team do you think will be hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy next summer? The Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers or is there a remote possibility that some other team will be celebrating in an unruly fashion in front of all the cameras at season's end?

Flash back to the mid-'80s when every year it seemed as if the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics eyed each other from across the continent. They kept tabs on one another's progress over the course of the season as they looked to be on a collision course toward the finals with the winner capturing the NBA title.

Well, what's new is old and what's old is new as it seems like we are going back in time and headed for a rematch of last season's NBA final again next June. Mind you, there are some squads looking to derail the league's dream match-up the way only three teams could back in the day. Outside of the Lakers and Celtics, the Philadelphia 76ers, Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons were the only other teams to appear in the finals with either Boston or Los Angeles in the decade of the '80s.

Currently, the Lakers and Celtics own the best records in their respective conferences and Los Angeles star Kobe Bryant has already said unabashedly that Boston is ultimate measuring stick.

"It's Boston that's our barometer," Bryant told the Los Angeles Daily News. "They're the standard. They're the benchmark. That's the team that beat us, so that's how it's going to be."

It's about tracking improvement according to Bryant.

"The message we want to send is that we want to see how much we've improved since the last time we've faced them," Bryant said. "That's what we want to see. That's what I want to see."

Those words from last season's MVP seem to throw the notion of the Christmas Day contest being "just another game" out the window. Unquestionably, in the minds of the Los Angeles players, the match-up will tell them how much further they have to go.

But the Lakers have stumbled slightly on their recent East Coast swing losing back to back games in Florida against the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic and need to get back to their winning ways before Santa presents them with Celtics on Dec. 25.

While the players may take on the role of the hare in the season-long marathon, looking down the road and keeping a watchful eye on the standings, coaching staffs are content with being the tortoise with more immediate thoughts occupying their consciousness.

"No question, the guys are focused on Boston," said Los Angeles Laker assistant coach Jim Cleamons, who has been at the "Zen Master" Phil Jackson's side for six of his nine titles. "It's not necessarily a bad thing but we're not there yet."

"We need to take care of business along the way or else there will be no match-up with Boston in the finals. As coaches, we're not concerned with Boston."

On the other coast Boston coach Doc Rivers still maintains that his team can play better stating that his team still has not "hit its stride yet". If those thoughts articulated by Rivers, even though they may simply be a motivational carrot for his squad, are true, then the rest of the NBA had better beware. What's up Doc? You mean your team can still pick it up a notch from the league-leading 26-2 mark that ties the NBA record for the best start in history? Wow!

Rivers surveyed his players last week in Atlanta before facing a Hawks team that has improved itself from the squad that gave them a seven-game tussle in the first round of the playoffs a season ago and concluded that only about half his players actually knew what the team's record was in terms of its actual numbers.

That result seems more in keeping with the "one game at a time mentality" that so many espouse in NBA circles. Kevin Garnett, unquestionably the Celtics most overt competitor, has told his teammates to "be in love with the idea of competition" above all else.

So we will all watch closely what happens on Christmas Day in Los Angeles even though Rivers suggested to the NBA "poobahs" as defending champions, it's not enough that the Celtics have to play on the holiday, they should at least have the right to play at home. Can't say I disagree with Rivers because if they were running on the blacktop outside, winners always get the ball before they call "next."

The Dec. 25 match-up is sold out and courtside seats are reportedly selling for $10,000. Sounds like the game might just be wetting people's appetites as everyone is looking toward June even though it is still a long way off.