The L.A. Kings blew a chance to clinch their division (and a no. 3 seed) Thursday night, losing a shootout at home to San Jose. Those two teams play again on Saturday night, in San Jose, with the winner getting the no. 3 seed and the loser getting the no. 7 seed. (Late note after we posted: Apparently Phoenix can win the division as well by winning its last two games. I'm not too concerned because, again, it's Phoenix.) None of this really matters because seeds don't matter in hockey -- anybody can beat anybody anywhere at anytime -- but for the die-hards sitting in my section, it mattered for two reasons.

1. The no. 3 seed potentially means an extra playoff game (Game 7, no less). Like everyone else who bought Kings playoff tickets, I wanted that extra game. Badly. I was rooting for the Kings like they were a Boston team last night.

2. I know this sounds impossible, but in 44 years, the Kings have only captured one division title. They even put up a banner in Staples Center for it. Is there a better way to prove your fans have been tortured than hanging division banners, or even worse, having one of those fans say during a game, "We need to get that banner?" (And yes, I heard someone say that last night.)

In the locker room after the Lakers' win over the Clippers last night, Kobe Bryant was asked about an assessment he’d made early in the season about the burgeoning NBA rivalry in Los Angeles. The reporter paraphrased it for him, something along the lines of, “We’ll let them be exciting. We’ll take the wins.” Bryant nodded along as he heard it. In the Lakers’ 113-108 win in the season series’ deciding third game, that notion was fully on display, and deep into the second half, it even seemed as though one was leading to the other.

Everyone has probably seen the play a dozen times by this point.

With the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters — we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. Click here for our coverage.

I grew up going to Warriors games during stages nine through 26 of their grief. It was an occasionally uplifting but ultimately demoralizing time. My clearest musical memory of those games was that after a fourth-quarter Warriors scoring run, a crudely animated pair of anthropomorphized lips would lip-synch to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” on the arena’s aging scoreboard. The crowd loved it. I loved it, even when I was 15 and all I wanted to listen to was antisocial rap music, Led Zeppelin, and alt-rock songs about how girls are confusing.

It’s strange which songs become attached to certain teams. An Alan Parsons Project instrumental from 1982 is now tied to the legendary Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. Studio wizard (and true star) Todd Rundgren's “Bang the Drum All Day” plays any time the Green Bay Packers score a touchdown at Lambeau.

Earlier this week, I watched the Lakers play the Nets at Staples Center and tracked the game through what I heard.

With the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters — we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. Click here for our coverage.

The Clippers beat the Suns 103-86 last week and I didn't care that much. I mean, congratulations to the Clips and all, but truth be told, I wouldn't have cared even if the game was close. That’s because my mind was on something much more important: food.

Stadiums and arenas make a huge profit from their concession stands, and fans seem more than happy to put up with outrageous prices for the privilege of eating Frito Pie Dogs courtside. For some reason, $9 burritos seem perfectly justifiable when you're watching Blake Griffin show off his new moon shoes. While stadiums around the country have beefed up their concession offerings to include more than just hot dogs and popcorn, they're still a long way from offering quality grub. At Staples Center, you've got several different food venues, but if you're looking for anything out of the ordinary, you have to create it yourself. So I did.

Introducing the Staples Center Secret Menu. If you're at all familiar with In-N-Out Burger, you're also familiar with its secret menu. It's not really secret so much as just being creative with all the offered toppings. That was my guiding principle here: Take items that already exist and turn them into new dishes that pay tribute to my favorite Clippers. If you're extremely nice to the concession stand workers, they'll make these for you. Otherwise, you'll have to play Chef BoyarSterling to put them together yourself.

With the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters — we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. Click here for our coverage.

When the first quarter ended Thursday night, with the Lakers up 12 and a lathered, playoff-type crowd on its feet at Staples Center, it felt like we were seeing what might undo the Oklahoma City Thunder come June. Through the first 12 minutes, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were a combined 3-for-15. Andrew Bynum was handling Kendrick Perkins down low, and Kobe Bryant had nine points in what seemed like one of those nights where he would go off for 40. Everything argument for the Lakers as the chic new favorites in the Western Conference would be legitimized.

Then something scary happened.

With the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters — we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. Click here for our coverage.

1. The Clippers do something very cool before their Monday-night game against the New Orleans Hornets. They invite Ricardo Brown, a member of the Philippine Basketball Association’s Hall of Fame, to meet with the Clippers’ Filipino American fans. A small crowd gathers in a VIP conference room a couple hours before tip-off to mingle and take pictures with Brown, a Filipino American who starred at Pepperdine for two seasons and was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 1979. Brown, a point guard, never made an NBA roster, but he had a brilliant career in the Philippines, where he played a pioneering role as the first major Fil-Am player to return to his parents’ homeland and become a bona fide star in the local league. He also earned the nickname “The Quick Brown Fox,” which sounds a tad goofy nowadays, but hey, what can you expect from 1980s Manila — it’s the same time and place where the American Ninja franchise got its start. I spent three years in the Philippines researching the country’s fervent basketball culture, and I listened to several of Brown’s former teammates tell stories about how he brought guard play in the country to a new level. For me and the fans who arrive early to meet Brown, it means a lot to see Philippine basketball get some recognition from an NBA franchise.

With the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters — we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. Click here for our coverage.

Has anyone made that joke yet? Well, boom, I just planted my flag on it. Sounds like a lost Steely Dan album. The Ramon Sessions Sessions were in session Sunday night at Staples Center, where a constellation of celebrities, kids who won Read-to-Achieve tickets, and everyone in between came to watch the Lakers take on the Grizzlies. And while Rudy Gay spent three quarters playing like the Rudy Gay so many of us want Rudy Gay to be, and O.J. Mayo turned into Clyde Drexler for five minutes in the fourth quarter, essentially winning the game, 102-96, for the visitors, the real story took place off-court. Well, just off the court, where the switch for Kobe Bryant and Lakers coach Mike Brown's on-again-off-again relationship was flipped decidedly to "off."

With the Lakers, Clippers and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland's headquarters — we couldn't resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. For previous 28 Days Later dispatches, click here.

With a little less than 10 minutes remaining in the third quarter of Thursday night's fun-but-sloppy Staples Center game between the Clippers and Suns — with Los Angeles up by 10 and the Suns with the ball — Blake Griffin mugged Jared Dudley.

Knocking the ball loose, Griffin ran through Dudley and took off down court. Despite the whistle blowing for a loose ball foul, Griffin kept going, throwing himself an alley-oop off the backboard and nearly following through with a tomahawk dunk.

With the Lakers, Clippers and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland's headquarters — we couldn't resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. For previous 28 Days Later dispatches, click here.

The thought came about halfway through the first quarter last night. The Clippers had hit their first six shots, and after another massive DeAndre Jordan dunk made it 17-8, Atlanta was forced to call timeout. For those six minutes, Chris Paul and his bunch were the Clippers that people had imagined when the season began. It was high-flying, shot-making, thrill-inducing basketball, and all I could think as both teams moved to their benches was that somehow, some way, I’d become bored with the most entertaining team in the NBA.

With the Lakers, Clippers and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland's headquarters — we couldn't resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. For Day 1, click here. For Day 2, click here. Here's Day 3.

Buying season tickets for the L.A. Kings seemed like a good idea during the NBA lockout. It seemed like a great idea in November when there was no basketball, if only because our seats are directly behind one of the goals, and lemme tell you something, there is nothing quite like sitting behind the net at a hockey game. You learn to respect goaltenders (hardest job in sports, hands down); the speed of the game (ridiculous); the sensation of a puck speeding toward your face that gets abruptly stopped by the glass (only you don't realize it's been stopped until you hear that gunshot-like sound that stops your heart for a second); and how relentlessly physical professional hockey is (and also, how freaking tough those guys are). There was definitely a "new car smell" to those first few games behind the pipes. I loved them.

With the Lakers, Clippers and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 — all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters — we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. If you missed Day 1, click here. Here’s Day 2.

What happens when you combine the NBA's lockout-shortened season with some unforeseen scheduling quirks? You get 28 Days Later at Staples Center. Here's how I explained it to my wife yesterday morning:

Me: "Crazy stretch at the Staples coming up."

Her [immediately suspicious]: "What do you mean?"

Me: "Starting today, the Clippers, Lakers and Kings have 28 home games in 28 days."

Her: "Wait, 28 games in … [thinking] … you're not planning on going to all of those, right?"

Me: "I was thinking about it. Maybe —"

Her: "If you go to 28 games in 28 days, I'm going to start moving your stuff out of the house one game at a time."