Perhaps today is the begining of a new chapter. Although there still hasn’t been an official report of the fact that Pau Gasol may make his Lakers return today against the Washington Wizards, all these losses are beginning to make things quite difficult. The Phoenix Suns have now caught up to the Los Angeles Lakers for first place in the Pacific Division. Thankfully, the Lakers hold possession of the tiebreaker between the two teams in will probably beat out their rivals for the #1 spot.

The Western Conference is tight and the Lakers can really use a full roster to secure their position. At this point, even their playoff hopes aren’t safe considering how strong the other teams are and the lack of injuries in the conference. The Los Angeles Lakers seem to be the only team in the NBA today, besides the Dirk Nowitzki injury to the Dallas Mavericks, that still has a bunch of injuries.

I hoping that today is the big day that Pau Gasol decides to boost the confidence of this team, at least for a few minuted in each quarter, not necessarily as a starter. If Pau can log about 4-5 minutes per quarter and play a total of 15-20 minutes, I will be very happy. Chris Mihm’s body is available to plug the lane if necessary but he isn’t capable of doing a very good job like Pau Gasol would for example.

There is one significant upside to the injuries the Lakers have had. If somehow coach Phil Jackson can manage to make this team bond well enough to become strong within the last five or so games of the regular season, then the Lakers can have a very strong team come playoff time. The only teams that may get a preview of what the Lakers look like with both Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum in the lineup are the New Orleans Hornets and the San Antonio Spurs, as they will both face the Los Angeles Lakers right before the regular season comes to a close.

The short break in between the regular season and the start of the playoffs is surely marked on the calendar by the coaching staff as the most important part of this season. It will be a pivotal part of the season as the time comes to really step up the team game and especially the defense. Mini training camp will make this team into a championship contender. Today is the beginning of the end…

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Los Angeles Lakers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.