Home-Court Edge on Line

If the playoffs were to begin today, the Lakers would have home-court advantage over Houston in a first-round, best-of-five series. But don’t think that the Lakers are too worried about how the Rockets are doing even if Houston has lost five of its last six games.

“I definitely think [it’s more important that we’re playing well],” Laker point guard Derek Fisher said. “The way we had been playing, it really didn’t matter where we would have started out. We weren’t playing well at all. The key for us is to improve over the next few games [heading into the playoffs].”

With three games remaining, the Lakers and Rockets have 28-19 records, but the Lakers hold the tiebreaking edge by winning two of three games between the teams this year. Houston plays at home against the Clippers tonight and again Monday against Minnesota before finishing the season at Denver. The Lakers play at Seattle today and then play host to Dallas on Monday and Portland to close the season Wednesday.

Interim Coach Kurt Rambis would love to have fourth position in the Western Conference locked up early so the Lakers could have a brief mini-camp to get away from Los Angeles before Game 1 of the first round. Even if the Lakers end up starting the series on the road, Rambis said that the team would leave for Houston at least a day early.

“We as coaches [have already begun to plan for playing Houston in the playoffs] but we want the players to just concentrate on playing and what they’re doing,” Rambis said.

“All we did is go through real preliminary talks with the coaching staff to discuss our options. Just some things we are looking at.”

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The Lakers went through a tough 90-minute workout at Southwest College on Saturday afternoon, which pleased Rambis, who was impressed with the team’s work on defense. Shaquille O’Neal, who made 14 of 17 free throws in a win over Portland on Thursday, worked after practice on his shooting from the line with assistant Larry Drew.