Recently, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol were forced to miss time and that left the Lakers team pretty depleted. Los Angeles did beat the Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings without Bryant, showing that the roster is capable of winning games without their main star. Nevertheless, the Lakers need a healthy roster in order to make a push for the postseason and they cannot afford to have another starter go down to injury.
—- See Pau Gasol through the years in photos! —-
Every time a player returns to action, the entire team is taken out of rhythm and it has to adjust with another person in the rotation. Mike Trudell tweets that Bryant said that was exactly what happened to the Lakers on Monday night, they were just not ready to face a tough team like the Warriors while still getting adjusted to him and Gasol returning.
Kobe said that with him out & Gasol returning, it “threw us out of rhythm.” They’d been playing a certain way, are now adjusting again.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) March 26, 2013
The Lakers lost a game on the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference standings on Monday night, making the race for the eight seed even more interesting. Los Angeles has now lost three consecutive games and will be hoping to break the slide Wednesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves.