Tuesday night is the beginning of a four game stretch over six days for the Lakers in which their opponents have a combined record of 76-35. The league best Golden State Warriors bring in their high-powered scoring to Staples Center to begin the week. The Warriors thoroughly embarrassed the Lakers the last time they were in LA—Kobe Bryant put up a valiant effort in scoring a game high 44 points, but the Lakers still fell short to the Warriors 136-115. With the talks of Bryant’s minutes being curtailed this week, another 40 plus point game from him may be out of the question.
This is the third time these two teams will be matching up in the past two months, and the Warriors have won each game comfortably. In the two games so far, Golden State has averaged just south of 132 points a game against the Lakers. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are playing at MVP type levels, looking like the NBA equivalent to Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield.
The Lakers then take center stage on Christmas day as they face the Eastern Conference’s fourth seeded Chicago Bulls. The Bulls are a talented team, but Pau Gasol facing Bryant and the rest of the Lakers for the first time since his departure from LA will no doubt be a leading headline. Gasol’s tenure with the Lakers had a sour ending, as he was the constant target of criticism and the center of trade rumors for multiple seasons.
At 34, Gasol is the fifth leading scorer amongst Power Forwards in the NBA, first in rebounding, fourth in blocks, and tied for third in double-doubles with fifteen over twenty-four games. This is the first season Gasol has averaged a double-double since 2011-2012, the year before Mike D’Antoni was hired as coach…but let’s not bring up old wounds.
Bryant and Gasol won’t have much time to catch up after the game as the Lakers will immediately fly out to Dallas and take on the Mavericks and the newly acquired Rajon Rondo for a back-to-back. The Mavericks hold the fifth seed in the highly competitive Western Conference, but are now considered strong contenders for the NBA Finals with Rondo leading the offense. To make things more difficult for the team, the Lakers could be without Bryant for this game in order to rest his already tired body.
The team will then return to Los Angeles to face the Phoenix Suns on Sunday. The Suns are the current ninth seed in the West, but are just a game out of the eighth seed and are on a three game winning streak. By the time the two teams play on Sunday, there’s a chance the Suns are sitting as the eighth seed in the conference. The Lakers have played the Suns twice so far, and lost each time. Bryant lead the team in scoring each game by putting up 31 points in the first game, and then 39 in the next. However, the defense struggled throughout allowing the Suns to score a combined 231 points in those two games.
Its no doubt the team will be mightily tested this week, but that doesn’t mean they can’t prevail. As Jeremy Lin pointed out after the loss to the Kings on Sunday, there have been spurts of the Lakers playing brilliantly:
“We saw what we’re capable of in that San Antonio game. That should be our blueprint.”
In order to win against each of these teams, the Lakers will need to follow that blueprint precisely.