The Los Angeles Lakers play the Boston Celtics tonight in Beantown in a game that is more important to them than many NBA fans.
The Lakers v. Celtics game will be nationally televised on TNT so Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal will be in attendance for comedy relief as well as constructive criticism.
The proud franchises who clashed in the NBA Finals twice in the last four years are still mortal enemies and fans can expect there to be chippy play, if not technical fouls called early.
Once a must-see marquee match up, the Lakers (14-11) sport a horrible road record this season of 3-9 and the Celtics (14-10) rebounded from a sloppy and uninspiring start that moved GM Danny Ainge to wonder if the Big Three would even play out the season in Celtics green.
The NBA carousel has turned and L.A. and Boston are hoping that they can preempt the official changing of the guard. The L.A. Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder in the west and the Indiana Pacers along with the Philadelphia 76ers in the east have emerged as forces to be reckoned with.
It was less than 2 years ago that the Lakers played the Celtics in a seven-game finals series that Kobe Bryant called the most satisfying of his career because it came against the Celtics.
Four years ago the Celtics were at the top of the heap after crushing the Lakers in six games, the last of which was a thorough thrashing that exposed the soft middle of the Lakers lineup. It brought Ron Artest into the fold as a free agent.
The main players remain but they have aged. Four men 30 years old and older are in the starting lineup for both and their benches don’t offer much help for a variety of reasons related to injury or ineffectiveness.
When Ainge put together the Big Three of Pierce, Garnett and Allen in 2007 he hoped for a three year window of greatness and vying for championships. He got it and since then, not so much.
Kobe Bryant is playing his sixteenth season in the league and has had to accept certain limitations but seems rejuvenated after his knee procedure in the off season. Yet Artest, Fisher and Gasol are not what they used to be and the new offense installed by Mike Brown isn't suiting their games.
One of the most infamous incidents from the 2008 Finals was the mysterious injury to Paul Pierce who was taken off the court in a wheelchair only to return minutes later as if nothing happened. It is burned into Laker fans brains. Tonight. wheelchair references might be for something else.
With the Lakers road record and the fire back in the belly of Pierce and company an L.A. loss might be expected, except that all bets are off when the two clash in what both believe is a must win game.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons//Keith Allison
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