NBA Game 7

LOS ANGELES, June 17 (UPI) -- The NBA season comes to an end Thursday with the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers playing the seventh game of the championship series.

It is the fifth time in NBA history the title will be decided in a Game 7 between the Celtics and Lakers.

The teams are the marquee franchises of the NBA. The Lakers, who won the NBA title last year, are looking for their 16th league championship. Only Boston, with 17 titles, has more. The Celtics' most recent championship was in 2008 when they beat the Lakers in the final series.

The biggest name on the court will be Kobe Bryant. He is looking for his fifth championship, nowhere near the individual record (that's 11 won by Bill Russell when he was leading the Boston Celtics) but it puts him in good company, with Magic Johnson, another legendary Laker, who has five, and Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who have six.

Bryant, on the game's importance, said: "I've said the whole season, you don't win a championship, it's a failure. It's as simple as that."