Those fans who thought that with the improvement of the Celtics’ roster by the acquisition of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen the historical rivalry between the Boston team and the Lakers might somehow be restored must be unfortunately a bit disappointed after last night’s game. The problem is that there actually is no such thing as rivalry between the two current teams because the Celtics are simply better than the Lakers.

The Celtics won 107-94 over the Lakers on Friday night at TD Banknorth Garden. The score doesn’t make any point, but the fact that the Lakers never led and never challenged the Celtics really tells the true story.

Kobe Bryant led in scoring with 28 points, but his team mates didn’t helped much. Derek Fisher scored 13 points, Lamar Odom had a poor game and after 32 minutes of work had just four points and Andrew Bynum had four points but four fouls as well for the Lakers (7-5) who chipped an 18-point halftime lead to nine midway through the fourth quarter before fading.

Reserve Vladimir Radmanovic had 18 and Jordan Farmar added 13 for the Lakers, which amounted just 35 points in the first half. Bryant, second in the NBA with 26.9 points a game, had only eight points over that stretch, hitting only 3-of-9 shots in the first half.

For the Celtics, Kendrick Perkins did a great job and recorded a career-high 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds to keep the Celtics unbeaten at home.

Kevin Garnett followed with 21 points and 11 boards for the Celtics, who improved to 10-1 overall and are 7-0 at home. Paul Pierce scored 20 points and had nine assists while Ray Allen chipped in with 18 points.

In this game Paul Pierce became the ninth Celtics player to go beyond 25,000 minutes and Allen became the 103rd NBA player to have played 30,000 minutes in the league.