Lakers finally beat Celtics

After a quarter-century of one team dousing pain and futility on the other, the Lakers finally beat the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals on this date in 1985, clinching with a 111-100 victory in Game 6.

Of the 15 Celtics championship banners hanging from the rafters over the parquet floor at the Boston Garden, eight came from beating the Lakers in the championship series. The most recent one came in the previous season.

“We got the monkey off our backs,” James Worthy said. “The hurt is gone.”

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 29 points and was named most valuable player in a series in which Boston lost a deciding game in the NBA Finals at home for the first time.

This week, the Dodgers were scheduled to play the first of three games Tuesday against the Reds at Cincinnati. The Angels were set to play the first of two interleague games with the Miami Marlins at Angel Stadium. Both contests were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

::

Other memorable games and outstanding sports performances on this date:

1940 — Stanford graduate Lawson Little, 29, beats Gene Sarazen by three strokes in an 18-hole playoff to win the U.S. Open at Canterbury Country Club in Cleveland. Little shoots a 70 and is the fifth player to win both the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur.

1973 — Facing a field of five horses, Secretariat, with Ron Turcotte in the saddle, wins the Belmont Stakes in record time to take the Triple Crown. Secretariat sets a dirt track world mark on the 1½-mile Belmont Park course with a time of 2 minutes 24 seconds, and a second record for largest margin of victory in the Belmont, 31 lengths.

1990 — Monica Seles of Yugoslavia is the youngest winner of the French Open when she beats two-time champion Steffi Graf of West Germany 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. Seles — at 16 years, six months — ends Graf ’s 66-match winning streak.

1993 — Patrick Roy makes 18 saves and the Montreal Canadiens win their 24th Stanley Cup by beating the Kings and Wayne Gretzky 4-1 in Game 5 of the Final at Montreal.

Sources: The Times, Associated Press