At 7:30 p.m. ET two storied franchises, the Los Angeles Lakers (14-25) and Boston Celtics (14-26) will square off in a matchup of teams that are essentially targeting draft picks at this point in the season. Live stream the game by clicking this link; Lakers fans can tune in to the radio broadcast by turning their dials to 710 ESPN, while Celtics fans can listen and follow the action on WEEI 93.7.
While the teams' situations are dire, tonight's matchup is noteworthy because Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo is expected to make his 2013-2014 debut after tearing his ACL last season.
"He'll probably be playing five minutes a quarter, approximately," Celtics general manager Danny Ainge said via the team's official Twitter feed. "Knowing Rondo, he'll probably complain about that." Rondo sent out a cryptic tweet, "29,233,380 secs," that apparently is the total amount of time in seconds between his injury and tonight's tip-off.
"I think the community is excited, as it should be, and the players are excited as well," head coach Brad Stevens said. "He gets the ball to people better than anybody around. But I don't think we can expect him to be Game 7 Rajon Rondo."
The Lakers will be receiving no such boost; in fact, their leading scorer, Nick Young, will add to their dearth of bodies after receiving a one-game suspension for trying to fight the Phoenix Suns in their last game after a hard foul. On top of the suspension, there seems to be friction within the ranks after Young called out his teammates for not backing him up.
"What I'm mad about is it was 1-on-5," Young said. "I felt like if someone would have gotten in the middle of everything it wouldn't have escalated as much."
Head coach Mike D'Antoni thinks the problem is simpler. "We're having trouble keeping up with athleticism in the open court and at the rim," D'Antoni said. "... Defensively we have a hard time stopping people at the rim."
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