Don't expect a mad dash to the finish line in these final four weeks. Several teams will settle for being upright once the postseason begins.

The theme of this regular season has been attrition, not dominance. The LA Lakers would be in a position to argue otherwise if they weren't waiting for Andrew Bynum to return.

Boston won 66 games last season. Now, the Celtics sit on 51 wins and long for a healthy Kevin Garnett to mount their title defense. Boston coach Doc Rivers has already conceded the best record in the Eastern Conference to Cleveland.

That's good enough for me, but I doubt that it's good enough for the NBA. The Cavaliers will be forced to play their final 14 games to secure the No. 1 seed, although they will have to do it without Ben Wallace.

Come to think of it, the top three teams in the East all enter the weekend with starters out. Six of the top nine teams in the Western Conference are without All-Stars and starters of their own. Some will return.

Others won't.

Our sympathy is extended to Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire and Houston's Tracy McGrady.

Health care reform is a major topic on the political landscape these days. The NBA would be a good place to start.

What does all this mean?

It means seven teams are bunched within five games of each other behind the Lakers in the West. San Antonio leads that pack.

But Manu Ginobili has been out since Feb. 11 with a stress reaction on his right ankle and could be out through the end of the month. His prolonged absence has forced Gregg Popovich to play Tim Duncan more minutes than he would like.

Duncan has responded by averaging 15.1 points and shooting 43 percent since the All-Star break. Popovich held him out of a game this past week to hopefully recharge his batteries. He will look to do that more the rest of the way.

The Spurs have been together long enough to patch their team together on the fly entering the playoffs. The Lakers went to the Finals last season. Working Bynum back into the rotation in the early rounds of the playoffs isn't ideal, but a team with a player as dominant as Kobe Bryant can make it happen.

Where does that leave everyone else? What happens to New Orleans if Peja Stojakovic doesn't return soon or the Mavericks if Josh Howard is out much longer?

Boston will beat whatever team it plays in the first round. But will Garnett and the Celtics be in synch and performing at the level needed to face Orlando in the second round?

"Everyone wants to be healthy, but everyone accepts the fact that the perfect world doesn't always exist in this league,'' Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "Sometimes, injuries create opportunities for other guys to step up their games and develop so in a certain way there is growth. Other times, injuries can really affect your record negatively, and you're going to have to deal with being a lower seed.

"But you've got to be healthy and have all your weapons. That's a fact to win a title.''

The facts are against most of these teams.

The last days of the regular season will make that painfully obvious.