There haven’t been too many victories for the Lakers this season, but they will have three full days to enjoy their latest. LA upset Miami Wednesday night and will watch Boston play twice before entertaining the Celtics on Sunday.
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TRAVEL
Boston is stoked that its five-game road trip comes to an end Sunday in Los Angeles; stoked that the trip is over and that they finish with the hapless Lakers. Games with the Clippers, Blazers and Warriors were sandwiched between contests against the West’s worst teams. The Celtics opened the excursion by narrowly getting past Phoenix and welcomed back Jae Crowder to the lineup Thursday.
In the midst of this difficult road swing, coach Brad Stevens insists he isn’t thinking about the playoff race even though his team is fighting for homecourt advantage. Crowder became a key piece to Boston’s playoff push before injuring his ankle on Mar. 11. Including that game and the eight he missed, the Celtics were 4-5 SU and 3-6 ATS while averaging 100.7 points. Boston lost in Crowder’s return, but the offense picked up and wasn’t as one-dimensional as it had been in his absence.
INJURIES
The Celtics are getting pieces back just in time for the home stretch. Crowder returned to the lineup Thursday after missing eight full games with a high ankle sprain. The club recently got forward Kelly Olynyk back after a shoulder injury and there will be a period of transition.
Kobe Bryant played just under nine minutes Wednesday night before having his shoulder wrapped on the bench. The Lakers will have three full days between games and Kobe said he’d like to play in what’s left of his final season. We’ll see how that turns out.
KEY MATCHUP
A minor injury last week followed by a major cell phone video faux pas may have changed the Lakers’ outlook heading into the offseason. Rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell exited a game in Denver on Mar. 25 with an ankle injury and guess who stepped into the role of facilitator? None other than Julius Randle, or course. Now Randle isn’t much of a threat in the assist department, so the role is a bit surprising, but he took command and looked a lot like Golden State’s Draymond Green in the process. Prior to that game Randle never had more than four dimes in a game. He dished out 10 against the Nuggets as part of his first triple-double. Further down the surprise scale were his 13 points on 60 percent shooting and 18 rebounds. After a thrashing in Utah where the entire Lakers team took the night off, Randle responded with a double-double of 13 points and 14 boards in a win over Miami to maintain his double-double average in his first full NBA season.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
While the names have changed and the records declined recently, it’s still the Lakers and Celtics, the best rivalry in the NBA. Close your eyes and you can go back to the Bird vs. Magic days of the 80s when these teams ruled professional basketball. The mellifluous tones of Chick Hearn on the airwaves, ahhh, those were the days. While both clubs are trying to get back to that level of dominance, it’s the Celtics who are on a faster track. And who would have thought D’Angelo Russell and Nick Young would steal the spotlight from Kobe Bryant over the final weeks of the regular season.
Boston 110, Los Angeles 100
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