Ball Just Might Be in Their Court Now

It wasn’t long ago that the Lakers could have been uneasy about their inability to beat the best teams in the West. In the last eight days, however, they have defeated the Dallas Mavericks twice and the Sacramento Kings once, by an average of 11 points.

What remains unchanged is the four-game season-series sweep by the San Antonio Spurs, a team the Lakers could play in the Western Conference semifinals.

As the fourth- or fifth-seeded team in the playoffs, the Lakers probably would play the Minnesota Timberwolves or Portland Trail Blazers, while the top-seeded Spurs played the Phoenix Suns.

The Timberwolves or Trail Blazers, of course, would make lighter first-round foes than, say, the Mavericks, particularly if the Lakers start with home-court advantage, which they could begin to cement with a victory in Portland on Sunday.

If the Lakers won their next three games, they would open the playoffs at home against the conference’s fifth-seeded team. They conceivably could claim home-court for the NBA Finals as well, though that would be a distant priority.

“It would be nice to have,” Kobe Bryant said Thursday night. “I want to stay home and see my daughter as much as I can. It doesn’t really matter to us if we don’t have home-court advantage, but it would be nice to stay home.”

The Lakers won Game 7 of the Western Conference finals in Sacramento last spring. They won the deciding games of each of their last two NBA championships on the road, in Philadelphia and New Jersey.

“It’s not that we don’t care,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “It is just that we have the ability to play well on the road if everybody is clicking. So, if we take care of business, then that will happen.”

Meanwhile, the Lakers -- all of them -- took Friday off. Robert Horry, who bruised his hip in Thursday’s game, and Rick Fox, whose swollen knee has shown little improvement, perhaps needed the time off the most.

The Lakers will practice this morning, then fly to Portland for a Sunday afternoon game that will go a long way toward determining their playoff seeding.

“We know that it is up to us and that we have to play a good game on the road against Portland and still our game is not done,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “We know that we have to win out to carry that out, so we have to go to Portland with a lot of energy.”

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The Lakers will open their exhibition season next fall with a game Oct. 7 against the Golden State Warriors in Honolulu, the first of two they will play in Hawaii.

Their eight-game exhibition schedule also has games on Oct. 14 against the Phoenix Suns in San Diego, Oct. 19 against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Bakersfield, Oct. 23 against the Clippers in Anaheim and Oct. 24 against the Kings in Las Vegas.

They also will play games Oct. 16 and 17 at Staples Center against two from among the Suns, Cavaliers and Clippers.

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In a rarity for anyone but O’Neal or Bryant, who get most of the shots, Derek Fisher shot himself out of a mini-slump Thursday.

After missing seven of eight shots in the first half, Fisher kept at it, was four for four in the third quarter and one for one in the fourth, finishing with 17 points. He made all four of his three-point shots in the second half.

Fisher has scored at least 10 points in eight of his last 10 games, during which he has made 48 of 97 shots. He also had made 14 of his last 20 three-pointers.

For the season, Fisher is averaging 10.7 points and shooting 40% on three-pointers.

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If the Lakers win out, they will have gone 40-12 since Christmas Day. Last year, they were 38-20 after Christmas.... They have won 15 consecutive games at Staples Center, 14 as the home team.... Against Sacramento, starting guards Bryant and Fisher did not commit a turnover in 80 combined minutes.... TNT got a season-high 3.0 cable rating for Thursday’s game between the Lakers and Kings. The previous high was a 2.3 for the Lakers and Houston Rockets on Feb. 18.