We all know the deal with the Celtics-Lakers history — they've met 10 times with the Celtics winning the first eight and Auerbach coaching in the first six.

It's just too bad Auerbach and Jackson never met head-to-head as coaches. The only jousting they've done has been of the verbal kind, and it did get quite ugly when Jackson won his ninth title to tie the venerable Auerbach in 2002. Auerbach teed off on him in a number of different ways, varying from how he never built a team and never gave the architects who did sufficient credit to how he only won with the likes of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and then Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

To these attacks, Jackson was quoted in 2003 as saying, "I just hope when I get to be his age, someone will pull a cigar from my mouth and insert an oxygen tube to allow me to breathe and think clearly."

Unfortunately, Auerbach died three years later at the age of 89, and Jackson never really did clean up everything. Clearly there was a lot more to his irritation than a knee-jerk reaction to Auerbach's condescension.

This rivalry actually started some 40 years ago when Jackson began his NBA career with the New York Knicks playing for his own esteemed Red ... Red Holzman. And there was no love lost between those two either, with Holzman winning titles in 1970 and 1973 (both over the Lakers). No doubt, every coach that dealt with Auerbach was rubbed the wrong way by his penchant for lighting up victory cigars before the teams would leave the floor.

Auerbach handled winning in such an overtly audacious manner that he fostered resentment intentionally with his own unique version of talking smack. Holzman loathed it, and by proxy Jackson carried that loathing into the next generation, even though Auerbach technically retired as Celtics coach in 1966. Ironically, Auerbach, a Brooklyn native, nearly took over the Knicks basketball operations in 1978, following Jackson's last year playing for the Knicks, but he ultimately opted to stay in Boston.

So that leaves us with a look at the relevant numbers as Jackson attempts to break the tie. Auerbach and the Celtics began a binge of winning in 1957 that very likely will never be matched in professional sports, claiming nine titles in 10 seasons — an astounding feat on any level — particularly in the NBA. Overall, Auerbach, who also served as general manager and later president of the Celtics, amassed a record of 938-479 (.662) during the regular season and 99-69 in the postseason (.589) — which ranks him ninth in all-time wins and fifth in the postseason.

Those are great statistics, obviously, but there were only eight NBA teams when Auerbach began and just nine when he retired in 1966, as opposed to the 30 of today.

That's not to say it's more difficult now, just a different kind of preparation when teams don't know each other as well and have many more teams to play just to reach the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Jackson's numbers are gaudier, particularly in the postseason, because they play so many more games with eight teams reaching the playoffs in each conference and four total rounds with each series best-of-seven. In Auerbach's day, the first round was best-of-five and there were only two rounds leading up to the NBA Finals instead of three.

Nonetheless, Jackson is 976-418 during the regular season and 191-82 in the playoffs, which both amount to a .700 winning percentage, the best in NBA history. His 976 wins leave him sixth all-time, while the 191 postseason victories are already a record. The 72 wins posted by the 1996 Bulls are a record that very likely will never be broken. Moreover, when his team has won Game 1 of a playoff series, they have won all 41 of those series.

Indeed, they are two of the greatest coaches of all-time. There are those who will rightfully contend that Pat Riley, who led three different teams to the Finals, winning titles with two of them, and Larry Brown, who has coached more teams into the playoffs than any other, belong in the same category. But Riley has four titles and Brown just one, so that pretty much cuts them out of the picture.

Gregg Popovich has won four titles in San Antonio over the past 10 years and built his team as president and coach, so he deserves serious mention as well. Lenny Wilkens has won the most games in history, but also has lost the most and has just one title to his credit. Don Nelson, who played for Auerbach, is only 52 wins behind Wilkens to tie the record, but he has yet to make it to the Finals as a coach.

So it's hard to refute the equation that brings the best-ever conversation back to Auerbach and Jackson. And considering what Jackson has accomplished this season, it seems poetic justice that his Lakers meet the Celtics. He began the season dealing with Bryant's outrageous preseason demands for a trade and tirades at everyone in the organization, developed the young team around him, and then fit acquired Pau Gasol into the heart of his offense as the final piece to the puzzle.

To be sure, this is not a team that was expected to even compete for the Western Conference title, let alone the NBA championship, so to win a title over the Celtics for the all-time record in such a season would make this Jackson's finest season — even better than 1996.

What better place would there be for him to accomplish this feat than in this generation's version of the Boston Garden? And if he does, the Man of Zen wouldn't dare light up a cigar, would he?