Tonight’s the Night to Start Partying

We know what you’re thinking.

Yeah, you with the Monday tickets, you with the Figueroa parking lot party planned, you with the confetti.

You’re thinking, shhhh, don’t tell anybody, but it’s OK if the Lakers lose to the Indiana Pacers tonight, because this way they can clinch the NBA championship during one of the final two games at home.

Sorry.

Think again.

We know how nutty this town is over dramatic endings and all, but we’re just going to have to settle for a simple, happy one.

The series ends here. The season ends now.

The Lakers will defeat the Pacers tonight at Conseco Fieldhouse for a four-games-to-one final victory and the franchise’s 12th NBA title, and there isn’t anything fate or Reggie Miller can do about it.

The Lakers will win after scrounging around for most of 48 minutes before pulling out the one tool they have been missing all spring.

Yep, the hammer.

“The one thing that separates you as champions,” Rick Fox said.

“The one thing we need to show,” Derek Fisher said.

The Lakers didn’t have it against Sacramento, blowing their first two chances to clinch. But they are calmer now.

They didn’t have it against Phoenix, blowing their first chance to clinch with their worst game of the season. But they are tougher now.

They also didn’t have it against Portland, blowing two more chances to clinch and coming within 10 minutes of blowing a third.

But they are believers now.

“This is different,” Shaquille O’Neal said.

And we are believers, too.

They’ll pull out the hammer, and we won’t recognize it at first, then we won’t be able to see anything else.

“We know now we cannot prolong anyone’s life, we have to cut off the water supply, and do it now,” said John Salley.

Two months ago, last week, any time before now would have been a foolish time for anyone to guarantee any single Laker victory.

That notion began changing in the final minutes of the final game against Portland.

It changed further in the final minutes of Game 2 against Indiana, when they won without Kobe Bryant.

It changed forever Wednesday, when they won without Shaq for much of the overtime.

The Lakers are ready for this, ready to finally wipe off an inferior team on the mat before tracking them into the house.

Ready to establish themselves not only as a great team, but a giant one.

History is ready for it, too.

As Phil Jackson might say, all the eggs are in the Zenhouse.

A victory tonight would mean:

The Lakers would win an NBA championship on the one-year anniversary of the day Jackson was named their head coach.

You remember the expectations of June 16, 1999, don’t you?

Has any promise so large ever been fulfilled so quickly and gloriously?

Jackson is a contractor who has finished ahead of schedule, and under budget, and after building two additional rooms.

All while using the same materials as two previous guys who couldn’t complete the job.

Salley was asked, if Jackson was coaching Portland in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, would the Trail Blazers have won?

Knowing what a politically incorrect answer might say about his teammates, Salley thought about it for a second.

But only a second.

“Mike Dunleavy did a great job, but if Phil was coaching Portland, then Portland would have beaten us,” he said.

The Lakers would win an NBA championship on the same day of the week-- and in the same sort of hostile environs--that Magic’s Lakers won the first of their five NBA championships.

You remember Friday, May 16, 1980, in Philadelphia, don’t you?

With Kobe and Shaq locked up for many years, these Lakers could become those Lakers.

But it must start tonight. And they all know it.

“We have been a good team in the playoffs, winning big games here and there,” Ron Harper said. “But to be a great team in the playoffs, you have to win game after game. We have to win this one.”

The Lakers would win an NBA championship on the 25th anniversary of the day they traded for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

You remember June 16, 1975, don’t you?

The Lakers traded Elmore Smith, Brian Winters, Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman to Milwaukee for Abdul-Jabbar and Walt Wesley.

A Laker cornerstone center emerged that day.

The next great cornerstone center will emerge on this day.

The Lakers would win an NBA championship on the spot where, earlier this year, they were denied a chance at approaching their own record when the Pacers defeated them to end a 16-game winning streak.

The place where possible history ended, possible history could begin.

“Kobe’s young, I’m older,” Shaq said. “But you know, hopefully . . . if we can get this victory, this will be a start of something.’

Something that starts tonight.

See you at the parade.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.