In the Stars?

Hall of Fame player and talker Bill Walton, who knows something about long, strange trips like the one on which the Lakers are about to embark, sounds unconcerned about their lack of home-court advantage in their quest for a fourth consecutive NBA championship.

“They can win any game against any team in any place at any time,” he said last week.

Tom Tolbert, although less accomplished as a player than his frequent TV sidekick, offers a contrasting viewpoint.

“The Lakers have proven they can win away from home before, but they haven’t had to go through the entire playoff series without home-court advantage,” he said. “This is going to be their most difficult playoff run.”

Indeed, only the 1994-95 Houston Rockets faced a tougher road to defending their championship than will the 2002-03 Lakers, whose path to glory (or maybe it will be gory) begins today against the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Target Center.

After winning a championship as the second-seeded team in the Western Conference in 1993-94, the Rockets endured an injury-plagued regular season in 1994-95, winning only 47 games and earning the sixth spot in the West.

The Rockets defeated third-seeded Utah, winning the deciding Game 5 at Salt Lake City. Then they downed second-seeded Phoenix, winning the clinching Game 7 at Phoenix. Next, they upset top-seeded San Antonio, taking Game 6 at Houston.

Finally, they swept a young center named Shaquille O’Neal and the Orlando Magic, the top-seeded team in the East, to repeat as champions.

“Like the Lakers, they had a lot of injuries during the regular season, but they had an unbelievable guy at the top of his game,” Walton said. “Hakeem Olajuwon, like Shaq, was at his greatest in terms of his control and impact on the game.”

The Lakers, seeded fifth, don’t have it quite as tough in facing No. 4 Minnesota and (potentially) No. 1 San Antonio and No. 2 Sacramento (or perhaps No. 3 Dallas) before reaching the Finals and the Eastern Conference’s latest tomato can.

The Lakers do have O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, the game’s greatest one-two punch since Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen helped Coach Phil Jackson to six championships with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.

“If you have the kind of confidence they do right now, it doesn’t matter if you play on the moon,” Kenny Smith, a guard on the Rockets’ back-to-back championship teams of the 1990s, said of the Lakers.

Charles Barkley, a former NBA standout, added: “I think it’s better for them on the road. “I actually liked playing on the road because you’re more focused and there are less distractions. You’ve kind of got that bunker mentality. You know everybody is going to hate you.”

The Lakers also have the experience of three consecutive championships to guide them through what might otherwise be a harrowing two-month journey through bumpy flights, lumpy beds and bad room service.

And that’s all before they play on the opponents’ court.

To be sure, the Lakers have it better than most business travelers do. They fly on chartered aircraft with an entire cabin to call their own. They have their pick of movies and magazines to pass time.

They travel from airport to hotel to gym on a chartered bus, with many of the same amenities. Let’s not kid ourselves, the Lakers will not be staying at Motel 6. They will stay only in four-star luxury while on the road.

However, the creature comforts of home are sadly lacking.

Ask Bryant, whose late-night cravings led to a case of food poisoning on the eve of Game 2 of the Lakers’ Western Conference series last season against the Kings. Who knows what might have happened if Bryant had ordered the club sandwich with fries instead of a cheeseburger and cheesecake?

Instead of dialing room service, Bryant also might have been better off hailing a cab and heading to the nearest In-N-Out. In Minneapolis, he might hit White Castle. In San Antonio, Whataburger stays open 24 hours.

“That’s always a risk,” Walton said when asked about road mishaps such as tainted room service, “but that’s why you play seven games.”

No dummies, the Lakers switched hotels in Sacramento this season.

Next to eating, killing time is perhaps the biggest issue the Lakers will face away from home. There are only so many hours of “SportsCenter” and reruns of “The Sopranos” to watch from the relative comfort and safety of their hotel rooms.

An afternoon or evening at the movies is a favorite time-killer. There are multiplexes in downtown Minneapolis and at the Mall of America in suburban Bloomington, Minn., a place so massive it contains its own theme park. Meeting a 7-foot-1 giant dressed in purple and gold might be a tad frightening for boys and girls hoping to snuggle up to Snoopy and the other Peanuts characters, however.

“A lot of road games means a lot of time to focus,” said Clipper forward Lamar Odom when asked about the Lakers’ challenge of winning on the road. Asked for his pick to win it all, Odom said, “The Lakers, of course.”

Said Smith when asked about going out on the road: “You stay in your room or go down to the hotel bar.”

Heading to a club can be dicey.

“If you’re going to go to a club, you only go after a game,” Barkley said. “You don’t go on nights between games. People are going to see you and the media is going to get word that you were out clubbing and they’re going to crucify you.”

Then, there are the games.

Back in the day before cookie-cutter arenas replaced storied barns such as Boston Garden and Chicago Stadium -- both of which were razed in favor of parking lots for sparkling new arenas that replaced them -- teams had a true home-court advantage. Fans were on top of the action, bellowing into the ears of opposing players and, perhaps just as important, the referees.

These days much of the noise is prerecorded and when it’s shut off, the new arenas can be as quiet as a library.

Sacramento’s Arco Arena, which has the appearance and atmosphere of a college fieldhouse, is the exception. Still, the court is the standard 94 feet by 50 feet, the hoops are 10 feet off the floor and the free-throw line is 15 feet from the rim.

“It’s not like you haven’t heard everything that’s out there,” said Clipper Coach Dennis Johnson, who won three championships playing for the Boston Celtics and Seattle SuperSonics. “Once you’ve gotten as far as [the Lakers] have, you’ve heard all that noise before. It’s not going to stop them.”

Recall how the Lakers walked into that wall of noise in Sacramento last spring, swiping Game 1 of the Western Conference finals and, with the basketball world anticipating the end of their reign, the deciding Game 7 from the Kings in overtime.

The Kings -- not the Lakers -- folded in the face of that pressure to win.

“What I would like to see from Sacramento is good health and no more dry throats,” Walton said.

In fact, the Lakers won seven of nine playoff games away from Staples Center last season, including two in the NBA Finals during a four-game sweep of the New Jersey Nets. In 2001, they went 8-0 on the road in the playoffs, winning three times on the Philadelphia 76ers’ home floor during a five-game victory in the Finals.

“They are the favorites no matter what,” Walton said. “They are one of the great teams in the history of basketball. They have as dominating a player as there’s ever been in Shaquille O’Neal, who is playing better now than I’ve ever seen him play. Kobe Bryant has reached that rarified level that very few players ever reach. Phil Jackson is as great a coach as there has ever been.

“The story of the playoffs is, who can beat the Lakers? And equally important is, who wants to play against Shaq? All the talk about avoiding Shaq makes me sick. Bring it on. All this talk about getting to the conference finals. What is that? Either you want to win it all or you don’t.”

Times staff writer Larry Stewart contributed to this report.