A smug James Worthy lit a cigar on air to celebrate Lakers win over Celtics

When you think about the rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics, “Big Game” James Worthy is one of the first names that comes to mind.

Worthy, who played his entire NBA career from 1982 until 1994 with Los Angeles, has worked as a studio analyst covering the Lakers in Southern California for nearly a decade. So when fans saw Boston on the schedule for Tuesday evening, they knew win or lose, they would have to watch Worthy’s postgame reaction.

While most local broadcasts are sensationalized to hype up the team they cover, that’s not the case with Worthy. In fact, of late, no one has publicly criticized the Lakers more often than Worthy. He has said the team is not connected defensively, they’re not playing team basketball and he is unafraid to take shots at LeBron James.

He had a different tune after Los Angeles defeated Boston on Dec. 7, though.

As noted by Harrison Faigen, the Lakers legend was “must-watch” television after Tuesday’s victory.

After the game was over, when Worthy was on television, here is what he had to say after his signature clap:

“Now that was a good performance tonight, still not sharp enough as they want to be, but sharp enough to get that Celtic and Cedric Maxwell … I started saying that get that Celtic maybe three years ago and all of a sudden, you want to start saying ‘get that Laker ’ — make up your own stuff, that’s my line and while you’re trying to come up with your own line, take this with you…”

Even though he was in the broadcast studio, Worthy then proceeded to light up a victory cigar. The smoke filled the room and soon, jazz began playing in the room as well. It was, as you can watch below, quite a scene.

This, however, isn’t the first time that Worthy has opted for a cigar to hype himself up after a win. As a broadcaster, he introduced that iconic move back in 2018.

Last year, on “Inside the Green Room” with Danny Green, Worthy explained the origin of his celebration (via Silver Screen and Roll):

“It kinda started when we played the Celtics. I used to always say, ‘let’s get that Celtic , that .’ So then, after we beat them … Red Auerbach used to light up these cigars after the Celtics won. When we beat them in 1985, he didn’t get to light it up, so that’s who I got it from … So, it’s kind of, light it up every now and then, big victory — we got the Clippers, I lit it up —special occasions. And I had some nice ones for the playoffs this year. I’m saving them.”

The win on Tuesday was, undeniably, a special occasion. The Lakers had beaten their rival Celtics. It was Larry Bird’s birthday. LeBron was healthy and so were Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis.

Who knows how many games like that Los Angeles is going to have for the remainder of the season? Worthy had every right to soak it all in while he had the chance.