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Showtime: 7:30pm PT
Plot: With four games left in the regular season, the Golden State Warriors still don't know who they'll be playing in the playoffs... nor do they know if they'll really get there. The Dubs are looking at just their third postseason appearance in the last 20 seasons, staring down at a potential 50-win campaign. However, they could very well not even get there. The Warriors are just two games away from falling out of the playoff picture, with the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns and Memphis Grizzlies all jockeying for a total three spots. Golden State has to win out the season if they want to absolutely want to secure games past mid-April.
And for the Los Angeles Lakers? They just want to get through another game without someone getting hurt.
The Lake Show literally limps towards the end of this regular season, with just enough healthy bodies to field some semblance of a rotation. Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, Xavier Henry and Kent Bazemore will surely miss the rest of the year, while Chris Kaman and Jordan Farmar are both questionable for tonight's game with calf and groin injuries, respectively. It seems that a game can't go by without another player going down with a serious health issue, with both Nash and Bazemore going down hard the previous two contests. If the Lakers miss all these players tonight, the team will have just eight guys, further opening the team up for health issues. If you feel like I'm writing a lot about the team's injury report, I am. Because I don't really know what to talk about for this game.
The Warriors are a very good offensive team with every single facet of basketball that ails the Lakers: speedy guards with quick, accurate trigger fingers and rebounding big men who can rack up the boards. From a basketball standpoint, I don't really know what there is to talk about. The Dubs are going for the season series tonight with the Lakers, a result that's hardly in doubt at this point. Truthfully, the best part of this game may be the return of Steve Blake, who returns to LA for the first time since being dealt at the trade deadline.
Let's just hope that everyone comes out of this one unscathed.
--MAMBINO
--Follow this author @TheGreatMambino