Not the Same Old Story

Once again, it’s with great relief that we mark the end of the long regular season and the beginning of the playoffs. Unfortunately for you Laker fans, your fat lady sang two weeks ago.

For you Clipper fans, what else is new?

For what consolation it’s worth, the league misses the Lakers too. As Commissioner David Stern acknowledged last week, noting a rare cloud in his usual sunny playoff outlook:

“It is clear that the Lakers are the team to love or hate, and a playoffs without the Lakers are going to draw lower than one with them.”

Nevertheless, Stern is going ahead with plans to hold the playoffs, which actually look as if they could be better than they have been in years. Everywhere but here, of course.

For five years, from 1999 through 2003, the West walked on the East, winning 20 of 26 games. Then Detroit shocked the Lakers last season and the Lakers sent Shaquille O’Neal (sob) East.

Now for the first time since 1998, the conferences are relatively balanced. The defending champion is from the East, closed the season with a rush and isn’t even favored to make it back to the Finals.

We’re now looking at four major actors: O’Neal in (sob) Miami; Larry Brown in Detroit, however briefly; Tim Duncan in San Antonio; and the highest-scoring team in 10 seasons, the Phoenix Suns.

Since the end of the Bulls’ dynasty in 1998, everything has revolved around (sob) Shaq, whether his team won or not, and so it does again.

The Shaq-Kobe Bryant Lakers had the league’s best record only once, but no matter where they finished, other teams knew the road to the title ran through Los Angeles. Now, even though the Heat posted the league’s second-best record, the road to the title runs through (sob) Miami.

That doesn’t mean the Heat is home free. Its first-round matchup with the New Jersey Nets won’t be a cakewalk. The Nets finished hot, winning 15 of 19, while the Heat was easing in, splitting its last 14. O’Neal sat out three games because of a stomach ailment, came back looking weak and then sat out the last two with a thigh bruise so severe he even threw out the possibility of sitting out some playoff games. Even if he’s back, he may not be back all the way.

Brown, coach of the defending champion Pistons, doesn’t usually handle success this well. After he won the 1988 NCAA title at Kansas, he announced he was returning to UCLA, attended a news conference in Westwood, flew back to Kansas, changed his mind and then left again to take the San Antonio Spurs’ job.

Likewise, his NBA title defense got off to a shaky start when he said the New York Knicks were his “dream job,” angering Piston brass and players. Then Brown needed hip surgery amid rumors he wouldn’t be back and said after returning he had almost retired. So it was a major surprise when the Pistons, 23-18 in late January, caught fire and finished 31-10.

Brown will still probably be out of there at season’s end, and this won’t end well. Nevertheless, as far as his career patterns go, we’re in uncharted territory.

The Heat and Pistons are odds-on to make it to the East finals. In the West, where seven teams won at least 49 games, everyone will have enough trouble getting out of the first round.

Insiders consider the Spurs the league’s best team, but they’re a long way from the top of their game. Tim Duncan’s chronically sprained right ankle got so bad, they shut him down from the end of February to the middle of April. He says he’s “75 to 80%.”

The Spurs need all 100%, especially with Devin Brown expected to sit out the first round because of a back injury and Brent Barry nursing a deep thigh bruise. The Spurs are reduced to hoping to get well during the drawn-out 15-day first-round schedule.

“I hope the first round takes about a month to get over with,” said Coach Gregg Popovich before the schedule was announced. “I think the NBA should market a lot during the first round, lots of commercials, lots of days off.

“If there’s anything else on TV, like ‘Desperate Housewives’ or something, they shouldn’t play the game. Maybe every four or five days we’ll play a game.”

The Spurs open with Denver, the hottest team in the league, having gone 32-8 under George Karl.

Karl, the eminent psychologist, is trying to psych out the Spurs, announcing, “We can live with losing in the first round. I don’t know if Phoenix or San Antonio can.”

Actually, nobody gets as tense as Karl. In 1996, when he took Seattle to the Finals, SuperSonic forward Frank Brickowski said Karl’s voice

was so high, only dogs could hear it.

The Suns are the runningest, gunningest team since the heyday of Showtime. Nobody knows if this style will work in the playoffs, but it sure worked in the regular season.

However, the Suns were 2-2 against their first-round opponent, Memphis, which held them to 95.5 points a game, 15 under their average.

The West being the West, just about anyone could win it. You could take out Seattle, which lost nine of its last 12 with Rashard Lewis and Vladimir Radmanovic hurt and Ray Allen so worn down he was thinking of asking for a rest.

Do not discount Dallas, which went 16-2 under Avery Johnson and actually started to try on defense. Do not discount Houston, either, which started 6-11 while retooling the entire roster (Yao Ming and Clarence Weatherspoon are the only holdovers from last season) but finished 45-20.

The Rockets play the Mavericks in an inter-Texas matchup that could be something.

The whole thing could be something, although (sob) not around here.