Watching the Lakers over the last week or so has been somewhat anticlimactic. With the Houston Rockets winning 19 consecutive games to gain ground on the playoff hunt, the Lakers just seem to be dilly-dallying with the lesser teams as of late with a murderers row of away games coming up for the next week.

After an inexcusable loss against the Sacramento Kings Sunday night where they gave up 71 first half points, the Lakers come out against the Toronto Raptors flat-footed yet again. Coach Phil Jackson got so frustrated he resorted to putting in Coby early in the second quarter with the Raptors nursing a two-point lead.

And by Coby I mean Coby Karl who is usually reserved for garbage time at the end of runaway games.

The Lakers eventually woke up and started making strides defensively in the second half eventually winning 117-108 on 15 for 32 three-point shooting. Even Phil Jackson admitted that was a lot of attempt. But if you make close to 50% of your three-pointers, why not?

However they did not have an answer for TJ Ford. 14 of his 28 points were in the fourth quarter keeping the Raptors in the game. And why in the world do you leave Jason Kapono unblocked?

So the Lakers now head off on a four-game road trip against New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and Utah with only a ½ game lead in the West. One of the bright sides of this trip is there are no back-to-back games on this trip. Other than that if the Lakers continue to play the way they have, they will be lucky to come back home with one win.

But they won’t. The Lakers always have the tendency to play down to their competition. Playing against teams with more than 40 wins, they will be up for the challenge and their defense will magically reappear. They will win three of the four games ending Houston’s 21-game win streak in the process and shoving Mark Cuban’s blog up his ass.

In other Laker’s news, Andrew Bynum ran on a $75,000 treadmill yesterday.

In former useless good-riddance Laker's news, the Clippers are rumored to be interested in Smush Parker. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

AP Photo by Kevork Djansezian