Western Conference Finals

They were mere steps away from each other in the giddy, crowded hallway at Staples Center: Tim Leiweke and Bruce McNall. The present and past nearly collided Thursday night, the bookend faces of a long and winding and often frustrating hockey journey for the Kings' franchise. Nineteen years after McNall's Kings reached the Stanley Cup finals for the first time, Leiweke's Kings are on the verge of their second appearance in the finals. "Memories," said McNall, the former owner.

For Willie Mitchell , it has been nine years since he just missed out on the chance to play in the Stanley Cup Final, and two years since his hockey-playing future was in serious doubt because of a lingering concussion. So what's another week of waiting for the Cup puck to drop? That may seem like an interminable amount of time for some of his younger Kings teammates, but not for the 35-year-old defenseman. Rest is embraced, not rejected, by the team's "over-35 crowd," Mitchell said.

The Thunder sped past the Lakers, and they couldn't keep up. The Lakers' championship experience surpassed the Thunder, and Oklahoma City couldn't provide a rebuttal. Two years after battling each other in a six-game first-round playoff series, both teams have acquired chess pieces that could set up an epic Western Conference finals contest. In a deal with Cleveland, the Lakers acquired guard Ramon Sessions, whose speed, play-making and youth allow him to move like a knight across the board.

First, the feared traffic nightmare didn't materialize Sunday, when cycling and hockey fans minded their transit rules in the morning. Then another doomsday scenario was averted when the Coyotes and goalie Mike Smith cooperated by shutting out the Kings. Result No. 1: Traffic flowed on the road and at Staples Center. The hockey game ended in regulation, meaning the NBA playoff game between the Clippers and Spurs could start on time. Result No. 2: The road it is for the Kings.

Finally, there will be a game. The Lakers haven't played since completing a sweep of Utah a week ago, but the circumstances are more considerable, the results more weighty when they begin the Western Conference finals Monday against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center. They're four victories away from a 31st appearance in the NBA Finals, but they'll get there only if Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum shake off knee injuries that have basically kept them off the practice court the last week.

That break between Kings appearances in the final four of the Stanley Cup playoffs lasted a lot longer than anyone ever intended, anticipated or dreamed possible. Nineteen years, in fact. It's little wonder that the final 20 minutes of the Kings' 3-1 victory against St. Louis in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals Sunday at Staples Center felt something almost like two decades. They became the first No. 8 team to eliminate the top two seeded teams in a conference, taking out No. 1 Vancouver in five games and sweeping the No. 2 Blues in four.

UTAH JAZZ (64-18, 7-1) vs. HOUSTON ROCKETS (57-25, 7-3) Season series: 2-2 TV: TNT, 5:30 p.m. If this doesn't end well for the Rockets, they're going to have all summer to lament letting the Seattle SuperSonics off the hook when they had them down, 3-1, with Game 5 in Houston. Instead of a five-game breeze, the league's oldest team--four starters 33 or over--got a seven-game war, by the end of which they were bending over, pulling at their shorts, looking gassed.

The Vancouver Canucks had been doing pretty well on the road in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They were still glad to play at home for the first time in 10 days, and it showed. The Canucks gained the upper hand in the Western Conference finals with a 4-0 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night. Pavel Bure, known as the "Russian Rocket," scored twice for the Canucks, who took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series with the next two games in Vancouver on Sunday and Tuesday.

Tuesday night, when these Western Conference finals were still in Portland, Ore., Kevin Duckworth was surrounded at various times by mobs of fans and mobs of reporters. This is usually a cause for concern, Duckworth being surrounded by the locals.

Welcome to the West, the NBA undercard. In a land far, far away from the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks, the Phoenix Suns, the league's winningest team lest anyone has forgotten, prepare for their next challenge, the Western Conference finals. "I would rather play the Mavericks, if you want to be honest," the Suns' Charles Barkley said. Instead, they will play the Seattle SuperSonics in a best-of-seven matchup that will start tonight at America West Arena.

Now the Kings will feel some heat. Not so much in the Western Conference finals. They still  have a 3-1 series lead on Phoenix. But the Coyotes' 2-0 victory at Staples Center on Sunday afternoon sent things back to the sweltering desert for Game 5 on Tuesday, where life will be a less-than-comfy 106 degrees, according to accuweather.com. Shane Doan's two goals will force the Kings to sweat out one more game, spoiling Sunday's coronation plans that had even brought owner Philip Anschutz out of hiding.

Kings left wing Dwight King could have given the expected answer when he was talking about previous influences in his life, namely if any of those folks reminded him of Coach Darryl Sutter. Rich Sutter, right? Rich, the younger brother of Darryl, was an assistant coach when King played junior hockey for Lethbridge, Canada, of the Western Hockey League. King called both Sutters "great men," but thought of someone else from back home in Saskatchewan who comes close to Darryl.

They were mere steps away from each other in the giddy, crowded hallway at Staples Center: Tim Leiweke and Bruce McNall. The present and past nearly collided Thursday night, the bookend faces of a long and winding and often frustrating hockey journey for the Kings' franchise. Nineteen years after McNall's Kings reached the Stanley Cup finals for the first time, Leiweke's Kings are on the verge of their second appearance in the finals. "Memories," said McNall, the former owner.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - The Kings were outshooting and outworking the Phoenix Coyotes in the opener of the Western Conference finals, beating them along the boards, in the faceoff circle and by almost every imaginable measure. But through two periods the score was tied, the only numbers that mattered. "There have been some times in games where we haven't been very good, but we've managed to hang around," Coyotes Coach Dave Tippett said. "A bend, don't break kind of thing. " The Kings were doing all they could to break the Coyotes' resolve but were getting nowhere.

Dwight King, aw-shucks personality and all, said there was a basic lesson he absorbed during six games with the Kings during the 2010-11 season. "You can't wait on the ice," King said. King didn't during a 4-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals Sunday. He chased teammate Mike Richards up ice on a two-on-one and chipped in a rebound to break a 1-1 tie in the second period. With time running out in the game, King beat a Coyotes player to the puck and flung a shot from center ice for an empty-net goal with 48 seconds left.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - They won a mere two games in December and ended up using seven goalies during a not-so-memorable Kings season in 2007-08. But one of those goalies - Jason LaBarbera - recognized something special in two of the Kings' young forwards, Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar. They had career breakthrough performances that season, scoring 33 and 32 goals, respectively. "You could see how great they were going to be," said LaBarbera, who is now the Phoenix Coyotes' backup goalie.

They were in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time. Out to gain the home-court advantage, the Utah Jazz took four leads in Wednesday night's final minutes, only to find out how Hakeem Olajuwon got to be this season's most valuable player. Olajuwon scored 12 points in the last 4:39 and 41 in all, almost single-handedly carrying the Houston Rockets to a 104-99 victory and a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.

— In 2009, the Kings finished 14th in the Western Conference, one season removed from the sharp-tongued impatience of former coach Marc Crawford and slowly assembling the defensive foundation that would launch them back toward respectability. In 2009, the Phoenix Coyotes finished 13th in the West but made headlines off the ice. Owner Jerry Moyes filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May, plunging the team into a haze of uncertainty. Players weren't sure where their next paychecks might come from or what currency those checks might be in. Things only got worse when Wayne Gretzky, a part owner, stepped down as coach days before the 2009-10 season was to start.

Upon further review, and the helpful distance of about three months, Kings center Mike Richards considered the wisdom of taking on someone about six inches taller and 35 pounds heavier. That would be a certain Phoenix Coyotes forward named Martin Hanzal. "I don't know what I was thinking," Richards said Thursday, chuckling about their scrap in a fight-filled game between the Kings and Coyotes at Staples Center in February. "Defense. " Survival, perhaps? Anyhow, there will be a rematch … and no rematch.