Many Predicting End of the Reign

The Lakers, destined probably for the bottom half of the Western Conference playoff seeding, have insisted it matters not whom they play in the first round.

Right enough. They are 2-7 against the top three teams in the West, having been swept by the San Antonio Spurs and won once each against the Sacramento Kings and tonight’s opponent, the Dallas Mavericks, thus far having shown a preference for none.

A couple of months ago, Maverick owner Mark Cuban suggested the Lakers’ three-year run was done, and two weeks ago one of his guards, former Laker Nick Van Exel, predicted the Lakers would not survive the playoffs’ first round.

The Mavericks probably will win 60 games but have not put away the Spurs. A fall to second place in the Midwest Division would mean a third seeding in the conference and a first-round date with, perhaps, the Lakers, if the Lakers overtake the sixth-seeded Utah Jazz.

Meantime, league-wide, thoughts of the Lakers’ demise are beginning to leak from the back of team buses and the corners of locker rooms. Van Exel went on radio and blurted it out, no longer a secret that the Lakers of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson might never again be more vulnerable.

“I think everybody’s felt at some point in the season the opportunity to step up and make a prediction about our team, about where we were going or how we’d finish,” Laker forward Rick Fox said. “Nick being the latest, not the first, not leading the way, won’t be the last. It’s interesting to debate opinions. We have our own opinions too. We’ve seemed in the past to deliver on them. It’s just hot air right now.”

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Robert Horry probably will start at power forward against the Mavericks tonight because Jackson prefers him against Dirk Nowitzki and because Mark Madsen has not provided enough of an offensive threat to pull defenders off O’Neal.

Madsen recently started 16 of 19 games and impressed most with his aggressiveness and energy. He scored in double figures only twice, arguably more to do with his reluctance to shoot than his inability to score. Still, defenses too often cheated away from Madsen to O’Neal.

“We’ve been happy with him,” Jackson said of Madsen, who will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. “At the same time, we know that there’s a limit to the amount of value we were getting out of it.”

Slava Medvedenko, who has an offensive touch but lacks the stomach for defense or rebounding, started against Memphis on Monday and scored 11 points in 21 minutes.

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Fox, who played for four years at North Carolina, said it had become increasingly “unsettling” that Matt Doherty’s program had so many players leave early, arrive unprepared for the NBA and, finally, who simply refused to play in Chapel Hill anymore.

Doherty resigned Tuesday after two tumultuous seasons, a three-year run that began with his getting rid of assistant coaches and administrative personnel.

“That wasn’t his ship to own, it was his ship to man,” Fox said. “I think that’s where he went wrong.

“I understand making your own way. Discrediting what was there before, that was wrong.”

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Maverick Coach Don Nelson, on the Lakers’ coming back from a 27-point fourth-quarter deficit Dec. 6 in Los Angeles: “I let [assistant] coach [Del] Harris coach the last quarter. I took them the first three and I said, ‘Del, take over and just ride them on in.’ ”

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TONIGHT

at Dallas, 6:30 PST

Channel 9, TNT

Site -- American Airlines Center

Radio -- KLAC (570), KWKW (1330), KIRN (670).

Records -- Lakers 43-31, Mavericks 56-18.

Record vs. Mavericks -- 1-1.

Update -- The Lakers lost by 26 in Dallas on Nov. 19 and came back from 30 points down to win, 105-103, at Staples on Dec. 6. They have lost three of five games on the road. Walt Williams is on the injured list and Michael Finley will not play because of a strained right hamstring. Finley, who has not played since March 18, was replaced in the starting lineup by Eduardo Najera.