Trouble in L.A: Can the Lakers Recover in Time?

After Thursday night's embarrassing 113-86 loss to the Denver Nuggets, the Lakers should feel a little worried. Not only was the game completely one sided, it also gave Lakers coach Phil Jackson the longest losing streak of his coaching career at 7 games. Jackson, who has had a rough week, was fined $50,000 yesterday for comments pertaining to an alleged "witch-hunt" that the NBA has launched against his star, Kobe Bryant.

Thursday night saw Lakers forwards Luke Walton and Lamar Odom returning to the lineup. This return was supposed to be a good thing but turned out to be a disaster. Both players seemed a little bit rusty coming off of injuries. Walton had an average game with 13 points and 7 rebounds. Odom did not have a great outing and only managed to score 9 points to go along with 7 rebounds. These numbers for Odom were well of from his average of 16.4 points and 9.4 rebounds per contest.

The bright news for the Lakers is that Kobe Bryant is having an outstanding season, and if his team was winning more games, could be a very strong MVP candidate. Bryant is averaging 29.2 points per game to go along with 5.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists. From time to time, Bryant can win a game almost single handedly, but that won't be enough unfortunately.

Odom and Walton should get back to their usual form very soon. Having them back at all is a positive thing considering that the Lakers expected neither of them to return until very late in the season, if at all.

Through Thursday night, the Lakers have a record of 33-31 which is giving them the sixth playoff spot in the Western Conference. They have a fairly comfortable cushion of three games between them and the eighth and final playoff spot. It still is a concern though. The biggest issue right now is not so much making the playoffs, but getting a good seed. The last thing the Lakers need is to be playing the Dallas Mavericks or Phoenix Suns in the first round. The Lakers' best bet would be to strive to get the fifth playoff spot which is currently held by the Houston Rockets, though it seems almost impossible seeing that the gap between the two teams is 6 games. This would give them a better chance to get into the Western Conference second round.

Though the Lakers are not in extremely bad shape, there is reason for a little bit of worry. If they can put together a good run now, make some improvements, and solidify a good playoff spot, they could be a tough opponent once the post season comes around.

Cited:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=270315007

http://www.lakers.com