Joe Kennedy shot baskets with the Celtics, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson endorsed Melvin H. King, and George Bachrach released a list of 26 supporters in the Eighth Congressional District's town governments this week, as candidates in the state's most overpopulated U.S. Rep. race competed for prestige and media attention this week.

Frontrunning candidate Joseph P. Kennedy II spent last Tuesday evening at the Parker House hotel with Boston Celtics Bill Walton, Kevin McHale, Scott Wedman, Dennis Johnson, and Jerry Sichtig in a fundraiser billed as "Five Celtics Start for the Kennedy Team."

The week before, he appeared on the ice at Arlington's Sons of Italy Hall with former Boston Bruins star Bobby Orr.

Kennedy's supporters also include Harvard's Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus John Kenneth Galbraith and Assistant Dean John R. Marquand. The candidate received an endorsement from Waltham's Mayor Bill Stanley earlier in March.

Bachrach released the names of 26 supporters on Monday. He told the Boston Herald, "I love watching the Celtics, but this is a race about who has the commitment and sense of the needs of the district."

His supporters include Cambridge City Councilors Francis H. Duehay '55, Alice Wolf, and Sheila Russell, as well as Cambridge School Committee members Timothy Toomey and Larry Weinstein. All 26 are city councilors and school committee members, eleven from Bachrach's home of Watertown.

The district includes Cambridge, Allston-Brighton, Waltham, Watertown, Somerville, Belmont, Arlington, and Boston's Back Bay.

King is a co-founder of the Rainbow Coalition, which popularized the Rev. Jackson's 1984 Presidential campaign. The two are friends and colleagues of long standing. Jackson preached last Sunday in the Arlington Street Church, where he criticized Reagan Administration policy. He then endorsed King at a news conference.

The two-time Mayoral candidate has also received endorsements from the Boston gay community newspaper The Guide.

King plans a four-day benefit tour to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in early May. At $550 per supporter, the deluxe tour includes a New Orleans campaign party.

King also held a fundraiser on Wednesday night in Cambridge's Man Ray nightclub.

Members of ultra-right-wing Jewish Defense League, founded by Israeli extremist Meir Kahane, have heckled and picketed King on several occasions recently. A King aide told the media that the organization opposed the candidate's position on Middle East peace talks. King has said such talks should include Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.

State Rep. Thomas M. Gallagher (D-Brighton) has received the area Democratic Socialists of America endorsement in the race. The candidate, who placed far behind fellow socialist Bachrach and King in recent polls, said he planned to have visited a quarter of the homes of likely voters in the Eighth District--30,000 doors to knock on by the end of this summer.

Gallagher said he visited 5000 homes last summer, and spent five hours this Saturday speaking with voters. He attributed his low showings in the polls to having "spent most of our time on organizational work rather than media work." He said he was working to improve his visibility.