By
Billy
Witz
FOXSports.com
WITZ
ARCHIVE
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Asked to explain how the lowly Charlotte Bobcats can dominate the two-time defending champions, Stephen Jackson, who is as shy about expressing an opinion as he is about taking a shot, was dumbfounded.
"I have no clue," said Jackson, the Bobcats' leading scorer.
Neither do the Lakers.
Once again, they were caught up in Charlotte's web, being handed a 109-89 thumping Monday by the Bobcats, who might not scare anyone else in the NBA but have now beaten the Lakers eight times in their past 10 meetings.
It was L.A.'s worst loss of the season and Charlotte's most lopsided win.
So, after winning the first four games of this seven-game, 13-day trip -- including a victory in Boston -- they have dropped the last two to Orlando and Charlotte by a total of 34 points.
"I have one thing to say," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said after waiting 15 minutes to meet with reporters outside the locker room. "We're very disappointed in our performance tonight. We are embarrassed with how we played. That's it."
And with that, Jackson turned around and headed back into the locker room.
As he did, Kobe Bryant exited -- escorted by two security guards -- without speaking to reporters for one of the few times this season on the road. He missed a shootaround earlier with what a team spokesman said were aches and chills and also was absent on defense for much of the night.
There might have been others who were feeling the effects of playing their fourth game in five nights.
But does fatigue really explain how 33-year-old Nazr Mohammad can come off the bench and score 16 points, or butter-fingered Kwame Brown can grab six offensive rebounds and hold his own against Andrew Bynum, or point guard D.J. Augustin can hand out nine assists without a turnover?
The Lakers trailed by 28 points midway through the fourth quarter, and even before that -- at the 7:43 mark -- Phil Jackson ran up the white flag by sending Devin Ebanks to the scorer's table.
It seems a proper penance that the Lakers, before they break for the All-Star Game, must spend the next two days in Cleveland.
"We've got to move on, go to the next game," Ron Artest said. "That's what Phil said, right? Just quote me: Ditto."
Artest, who was joking with reporters about Lamar Odom's new cologne, said of Mohammed: "I hope he gets a max contract, six years, $80 million -- even if he's 38."
Artest was not the only player who thought it might be better to laugh than cry about this one.
"I don't know, man, we looked bad," Bynum said, chuckling. "That's all you can say about the game. You know how you normally ask: can you take anything out of this? No. This was an ass-kicking."
The Lakers' defense, which seemed to find some bite in wins over New Orleans, Memphis, Boston and New York, has been lacking the past two days. Charlotte and Orlando have combined to shoot 50 percent (79 of 158).
Perhaps the most fitting example of how bad it was came late in the third quarter, when Brown -- the erstwhile Lakers' punchline -- grabbed an offensive rebound and sank a 16-footer jumper. On the next possession, he confidently made a hook shot.
Those two plays pushed the Bobcats' lead from 11 to 15, and forced the Lakers to call a timeout. It didn't do much good.
The Lakers have had these types of lopsided losses to sub-.500 teams -- doesn't anyone remember Milwaukee or Memphis?
Most puzzling, though, was that the Lakers know their history with Charlotte.
"I think we should have been motivated enough to have a better performance than we did tonight," Gasol said. "I'm not sure why we didn't do it, why we didn't put up a better fight at least."
The Bobcats' fortunes have shifted since Larry Brown resigned as coach a week before Christmas. They were 9-19 at the time, but since Paul Silas replaced Brown, Charlotte is 15-12 and has crawled within two games of Indiana for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Recently, Michael Jordan, who bought the team, has joined the Bobcats for practice, running through drills and scrimmaging with the team. He is not planning another comeback, but instead is working to imprint his competitiveness on the team.
