Viewing Alert

Celtics at Lakers, 3:30 p.m. Eastern, on ABC.

Haven't posted in nearly a month, a combination of the Nevada bar exam and the amount of college ball I've been watching during Championship Week. The Celtics limped into the All-Star break with five straight losses, then came out of the break with five straight wins. Then came a 32-point drubbing in Philly on Wednesday, followed by an embarassment of the Blazers in Boston on Friday (the Celtics led by 35 at halftime). That's lockout basketball for you.

We've got 3 1/2 games on the suddenly struggling Knicks for the seven seed, and the Bucks would have to make up 5 1/2 games on us to knock us out of the playoffs. It would great if we could catch Atlanta for the six (1 1/2 games) or even Philly for the Atlantic lead and no worse than the four (2 games), but the schedule starts to get really hard right about now. Eighteen of our final 27 games (that's two-thirds!) are on the road, including the next eight. And our road back-to-back-to-back looms in April, part of a stretch of 12 games in 17 days as the regular season winds down. So although I feel better about the playoffs than I did last month, they are by no means assured.

This road trip is a tough one. We play the Lakers and Clippers back-to-back, have the Warriors on Wednesday (we NEVER play well at Golden State), then are in Sacramento and Denver on Friday and Saturday. After that, it's back east for the Hawks on Monday, the Bucks on Thursday, and the Sixers on Friday. We should beat the Kings and Bucks, but we're not clearly better than any of the other teams. The Lakers haven't played well recently, and they're the first game on the trip. All this makes them maybe our best shot at a win on the trip other than Sacto and Milwaukee. So while beating L.A. is always nice, it carries some extra importance this time around.

BONUS VIEWING ALERT: ESPN is airing a documentary about Magic Johnson's HIV announcement at 9 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. I, like many others, remember quite a bit about November 7, 1991 -- it was the first time, of what turned out to be many, that life and basketball intersected for me. ESPN has done a great job with most of these films, which started as a series for the network's 30th anniversary, and I expect this one to be particularly compelling. So after digesting all the college basketball brackets, "The Announcement" might be a good way to end your night.