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I've been wracking my brain over the last 72 hours or so to conjure up the same passion in my soul that I had for past Celtics-Lakers championship series.

I just can't do it. I'm sorry.

It's been too long.

It's been too many years, and too many things have happened in the two-plus decades since the Celtics and Lakers played a relevant playoff series, for me to muster up the old emotions. I'd have a better chance of remembering my first kiss with my high school sweetheart (June 13, 1970 - thanks, Jackie!) than I would the sights and sounds of Bird and Magic going head-to-head, or Kurt Rambis getting decked by Kevin McHale in 1984.

Hey, whaddya know! I guess some things do stick around in the haze of a million and one sports memories. Still, it's a struggle to conjure up the feelings from when the NBA was so relevant, and the Celtics were so good, that "Boston vs. Los Angeles" summed up all you needed to know about professional basketball in this country.

The great Celtics-Lakers showdowns of the 1960s are vague memories. Somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear Johnny Most screaming at the top of his lungs as Bill Russell won his last championship in 1969, in a seventh game at the Fabulous Forum in which the Lakers' Wilt Chamberlain was injured and rode the pine right to the finish of the Celtics' 108-106 title-clinching win.

But those memories are so vague and so distant, they're barely accurate. It wasn't until recently that I learned that the Lakers' coach of that era, Butch van Breda Kolff, had turned a deaf ear to Chamberlain's pleas to return to the game - and even told the team's owner, Jack Kent Cooke, to take his order to play "the Stilt" and put it where the sun doesn't shine. I just thought Wilt had wilted under the pressure of another frustrating confrontation with the incomparable Russell.

A lot of things have happened since the last time the Celtics beat the Lakers for something that has really counted. Among them:

- The Patriots had not been to a Super Bowl even once in their history when the C's beat LA four games to three in 1985. They've been to six since then, winning three. They should have won four, but let's not talk about that.

- The Red Sox have won two World's Championships since then, although they had to wait until this century to do it. Better late than never.

- The Bruins? Oh, well ...

- Somebody got the bright idea to take another fling at professional soccer in the U.S., but it still doesn't matter to the vast majority of the sporting public. And besides, the local franchise has become the Buffalo Bills of soccer. There's no place like second place ...

- And finally, Hazel Mae is leaving NESN. The only reason why I mention this is because I woke up early enough Tuesday morning to hear WEEI's Dennis and Callahan (I was driving a friend in his car to the hospital for a check-up, and didn't have the heart to ask him if I could change the station), whining and crying over the loss of the cable web's anchorbabe. Maybe it's just me, but I never really got caught up in the Hazel Mae phenomenon. Still, I can't deny that she was a cult figure to Boston sports fans for "talents" that were plain to see on camera, if you know what I mean, and thus she became the biggest story in Boston sports on a day when the only other news was the fear that David Ortiz may be lost to the Red Sox for the rest of the year with a damaged wrist ligament.

You've gotta love the news judgment in this town. My only regret about this Celtics-Lakers series is the starting time of the games - 9 p.m., too late for the majority of young children to make it to the fourth quarter before they should be in bed.

OK, so I can't name more than two Lakers - Kobe Bryant and that Gasol guy (whose name sounds to me as if it should be plastered on pumps with "$4.09.9" signs on top). And I readily admit that I'm still not a Paul Pierce fan, although I have developed a greater appreciation for how well he and Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo have meshed on the court. But I still wish that younger kids could watch these games, because especially in the case of the Celtics, they represent a return to the fundamentals of basketball to the highest levels of the NBA.

These aren't just a lot of football tight ends banging with each other, or gunners throwing up threes indiscriminately. The Celtics look for the open man. They pass and play defense. And Garnett's prowess at rebounding is a joy to behold.

I lost my interest in the NBA because the game was being taken over by posturing, selfish players. Now, the Celtics have started to win me back because they play the game with the teamwork and grace that makes basketball special among all team sports.

Now, if only I could get back the passion I felt for the game while I was watching Russell and Wilt, Havlicek and West, and Bird and Magic ...

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com