Working Holidays Only Beginning
The basketball season and the holiday season are one and the same for the Lakers, who were off but out of town Thursday for Thanksgiving and will play a road game Christmas afternoon.
They held an early team dinner in Boston before traveling to Detroit for tonight’s game against the Pistons. Most of Dec. 25 will be spent in Phoenix, close enough that the Lakers can leave that morning instead of also losing Christmas Eve, but the 4 p.m. start means the entire day will be shot, or at least until the return about 8 that night.
“We have no control over the schedule,” Coach Del Harris said. “I’m more concerned with having to play four games a week the first seven weeks than where we are on a holiday.
“We’re an extension of our own family anyway. Not the family, but an extended family.”
They’d better get used to it. The arrival of Shaquille O’Neal makes the Lakers a marquee team and a likely Christmas regular to help NBC kick off its coverage each season.
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