Another night in the Lakers-Celtics rivalry

We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. . . .

As at the end of “Dr. Strangelove,” when a chanteuse croons a World War II ballad as mushroom clouds blossom in a nuclear exchange, rivalries may survive, even if they go away for a while.

With the Celtics making their last regular-season appearance here Thursday night, who knows how long it will be before we see them play the Lakers in another meaningful game?

The rivalry that defined the NBA took 21 years off between the 1987 and 2008 Finals, and it was an endangered group of Celtics who gutted out an 87-86 victory, one of the biggest of their beleaguered season.

So much for joy in Lakerdom.

If the hype was muted beforehand with Kobe Bryant sitting out and the Celtics out on their feet, Lakers don’t like losing to Celtics.

Asked before the game about his belated arrival in the rivalry, Phil Jackson recalled a 2002 game his team lost to the Celtics here when Antoine Walker banked in a last-second three-pointer by accident.

The Lakers were then en route to their third title in a row, the Celtics hadn’t even made the playoffs since 1995, but, eight years later, the What, Me Worry Kid himself hadn’t forgotten it.

Actually, the New Millennium’s Phase III of the rivalry has been a love-fest compared with Phases I and II.

Phase I ran from 1959, the last Lakers season in Minneapolis, to 1979, with the teams meeting in seven Finals and the Celtics going 7-0.

The Celtics defined “hateful” in those days with Coach Red Auerbach firing up his victory cigars on the bench and lording it over the Lakers.

Phase II was the ‘80s, with the Celtics making it 8-0 in 1984, the Lakers breaking through in 1985 and making it two in a row in 1987.

Those teams started out hating each other, but came to respect each other . . . if gradually . . . as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird went from bitter rivals who lived to bring the other low to good friends who lived to bring the other low.

Talk about your rivalries based on mutual respect.

Or not.

“Made me want to throw up,” former Celtic Cedric Maxwell, now their color commentator, said of the Magic-Bird friendship.

“Like M.L. Carr said the other day, you don’t let a robber come to your house and all of a sudden become his friend! How did that happen?

“The further away I get away from it, the greater respect we have for each other. In the last five, six years, I’ve just got so I can speak to some of these [Lakers] guys....

“We hated Magic most of all. That smile alone was enough to make me want to throw up. We were always saying, ‘Let’s wipe that smile off his face.’ ”

Now, Lakers and Celtics players are so detached, it makes Maxwell -- you guessed it -- want to throw up.

Boston Coach Doc Rivers spent most of his career with the Atlanta Hawks, who had their own bitter rivalry with the Celtics in the ‘80s, so it’s not as if they had the Ghost of Red Auerbach with them, blowing smoke rings.

Rivers has more pressing problems than the Lakers, like the Cavaliers, Magic and Hawks, all of whom they trailed in the East starting the night.

So if you think Rivers was disappointed at not facing the Lakers with Bryant, think again.

“We’re fine either way,” said Rivers, laughing. “As far as I know, they put a W [for the Celtics] and they put a L over there [for the Lakers].

“We’re good with that. You’ll be able to talk about that [Bryant being out], that’s fine by us.”

In the good news for the Celtics, who needed some, that was just how it turned out.

In any case, farewell and Godspeed, Celtics!

All Lakerdom prays the wind will be at your back, all the way to the Finals so the Lakers can then reduce you to your constituent atoms with the whole world watching!

Thus was it always. Thus was it for one more night.

mark.heisler@latimes.com