It’s amazing how quickly things can fall apart.
Before Sunday night, the Los Angeles Lakers were cruising along on a five-game winning streak and thoughts oft a serious playoff run were starting to infiltrate even the thickest skulls in La-La Land.
But one snap of a knee was all it took to send this train off the rails.
Just when Andrew Bynum was starting to play like the franchise center Phil Jackson and Mitch Kupchak always wanted, the big fella went down with a dislocated patella and won’t be back for eight weeks.
But you already knew that; that’s not news. The big story for bettors is that the Lakers haven’t been able to cover a pointspread since the injury. The change in the team without their young center has been quick and very painful.
They blew a healthy 11-point lead against Memphis after Bynum left the game, getting outscored 29-20 in the fourth quarter and winning by just one point as backers gave up hope of covering the -11 ½. The following night, they needed overtime to get past a struggling Seattle squad, failing to cover as 5-point favorites and very nearly losing outright.
So with the Phoenix Suns coming to town for a Thursday night TNT showcase, bettors must be envisioning the carnage that will take place at the Staples Center when Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire get a shot at this depleted lineup.
Kobe can only do so much, after all.
Well, maybe that’s not true. Kobe can do it all if he has to (as he proved against Seattle) but even one of his trademark Herculean performances won’t be enough to keep this team from falling off its perch atop the Pacific division. Kobe didn’t get them here on his own. They piled up their recent wins (17-4 SU, 13-7 ATS since the beginning of December) by employing an actual triangle offense, complete with inside-out scoring and solid interior defense.
The Lakers hadn’t looked this complete since Shaq was patrolling the paint. Obviously, Bynum is no Shaq but he was growing into an effective scoring threat in the paint as well as a good defender and rebounder. Now the Lakers are forced back into the old Kobe-goes-for-broke strategy which was on display in the Seattle game when Bryant hoisted 52 shots and easily outscored the rest of the starting lineup with 48 points.
Without Bynum, the triangle loses its shape. Kwame Brown can’t even compare with Bynum’s touch and smoothness in the low post and they also lose a lot on the defensive end with Brown. Ronny Turiaf isn’t even close to possessing the makeup of an NBA center. Lamar Odom is supposed to be another option, but come on…
Maybe the rumors will prove true and the Lakers will sign Chris Webber or P.J. Brown, which would probably patch up the hole in the lineup until Bynum is healthy, but in the meantime, Phoenix is coming and the Lakers aren’t equipped to stop the NBA’s best offense. With only Bryant to pull the trigger, they can’t win a shootout either.
You might be thinking that the Suns haven’t exactly been red-hot lately. In fact, things have been even worse than most people think after the Suns lost to the Clippers and dropped out of first place in the division. If you’ve been fading the Suns recently, good for you because they haven’t covered in their last four games and they were ATS losers in seven of their last 10.
On top of that, the Lakers have won and covered in both meetings with the Suns this season. So why should they be worried about facing a fading Phoenix team that has been one of the worst bets in the NBA all season anyway?
The simple answer is that the Lakers lost the only quality post player they had and Phil Jackson’s offense can’t work without a scoring threat in the paint. They blew a big lead as soon as he left the game when he was first injured. They barely squeaked out a win in Seattle against a team that has won only nine games all season, and it wasn’t pretty.
The difference in this team without Bynum is impossible to ignore.
Yes, Kobe will score 40, maybe even 50 points against Phoenix, but the Suns have too many scoring options. Steve Nash will have a field day feeding the ball in to Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Boris Diaw while Brown and Turiaf struggle to hold their ground on defense. The over/under in this game might be toast by the end of the third quarter, but a shootout undoubtedly favors the Suns over the Bynum-less Lakers.