It's all about June for Lakers

It is Jan. 2, a Friday night at Staples Center. The Lakers are playing the Utah Jazz, and we all know what that means.

Another dress rehearsal for June 18.

That would be, of course, the most likely date for Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

It could be a few days earlier, of course, but that's the last possible day listed and the NBA seems to have mastered the art of stretching things out. More games, more drama-building, more TV market share. David Stern doesn't make all that money for nothing.

Sometimes, you feel like the people most understanding of that are his referees, but that's another story for another day.

Suffice to say that, since Vegas has action for everything else, rob the piggy bank and get as much down as you can on Game 7 being June 18.

In other seasons, of course, a Lakers-Utah matchup would mean different things, varying story lines. New players to test. New offenses to run. A sulking veteran here. An unruly rookie there. Jerry Sloan's rigid defense against Phil Jackson's triangle.

Less so this season. This is the winter-spring of our Lakers tinkering for the playoffs. More specifically, for the Boston Celtics.

In the East, the hated, dreaded leprechauns are off and running at 29-5 and only Cleveland, at 27-5, and Orlando at 26-7, seem interested in disrupting the inevitable. If anything, this season's Celtics are better than last season's, and that group sent the Lakers home and humbled in a Game 6 rout.

In the West, after Friday night's 113-100 successful tinkering against the Jazz, the Lakers, at 26-5, are starting to look like Jeff Gordon, about to lap the field.

To be sure, the Lakers can't consciously treat the rest of the regular season like that, even if they know, deep down, that a spot in the Finals, and probably a Game 7, is all but scripted for them. They are a marvelous team. So are the Celtics.

Lakers Coach Phil Jackson talked Friday about the need to play well at home now, because the March schedule is packed with tough road games. He talked about the East, and how LeBron James' Cavaliers and the Magic have shown their stuff.

The implication was that lots of things can still happen to disrupt that Lakers-Celtics destiny.

He has to say that, probably has to believe it.

But barring broken legs or national famine, this season looks, smells and feels like a Lakers-Celtics grand finale. Yes, another one.