If the Lakers make it back to the NBA Finals, there's a good chance they won't have home-court advantage.
The Cleveland Cavaliers officially clinched the league's top record and home court throughout the playoffs with a 117-109 victory Monday over Indiana, leaving the Lakers with the NBA's second-best record.
If both teams meet in June, the Lakers would be the middle part of the 2-3-2 series format, which didn't work out so well for them in last season's Finals against Boston.
The Lakers lost Game 6 in Boston by 39 points, the second-most lopsided Finals game in NBA history.
Not that the Lakers (64-17) are already studying the landscape two months from now. Nor are they sobbing over the fact they will finish behind the Cavaliers (66-15) no matter what happens tonight in their regular-season finale against Utah.
"It's not ultimately something that we're going to mourn right now or rue the fact that we're not there right now," Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said. "We've had a great season, we've put a good run on. They did better than we did."
The Lakers might have reason to rue, particularly after their 0-3 effort in Boston during last season's Finals.
On the other hand, when they won three consecutive championships earlier this decade, they didn't even have home-court advantage in their own conference on two occasions.
It meant they had to go through the tough, veteran San Antonio Spurs and the cocky, upstart Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference finals.
And that was no easy task.
The Spurs had the twin 7-foot towers of Tim Duncan and David Robinson that the Lakers had to encounter in the 2001 conference finals without home-court advantage.
The Lakers won the first two games in San Antonio and the next two in Los Angeles to sweep the series, 4-0.
A year later, the Kings had the home-court advantage for the 2002 conference finals. It took a last-second shot by Robert Horry for the Lakers to win Game 4, and it took overtime in Game 7 at Arco Arena for the Lakers to win, but they did it on the road en route to their third consecutive NBA championship.
Perhaps that's why veteran guard Derek Fisher, a member of those championship teams, didn't seem overly disappointed that the Lakers failed to nail down home court this season.
