The Lakers needed overtime to finish off the Thunder Tuesday night in Oklahoma and should be thankful that they escaped with a win after such careless handling of the ball. The Lakers turned the ball over nine times in the third quarter alone and were fortunate to find themselves only trailing by a point heading into the fourth quarter.

Kobe had nine turnovers by himself in the game which could be attributed to flu-like symptoms that had him missing the pre-game shoot-a-round. Either way even if  the entire team had the flu that wouldn’t explain the lack of care the Lakers demonstrated for the value of possessing the basketball on Tuesday night. Perhaps the daze of winning it all last year and being awarded a larger championship ring than most rappers wear on opening night has the players content for now?

Either way the Lakers need to be reminded of the importance of playing hard early in the season. Now granted Gasol has missed these first few games, the team has played well enough for a 3-1 start. However two of those wins came against teams that I prefer to describe as terrible and the one loss against a contender in the Western conference. The game against Oklahoma as fore mentioned was a tight one and required overtime before the Lakers could sneak out the W.

What do the first four games of the season suggest? For one, that the Lakers miss Gasol. That may be obvious. However these early games may also suggest that the Lakers will have a tougher time this year come playoffs finding the energy to work their way back to the NBA championship than last. After all, Houston took them to 7 games in the playoffs last year without Yao for the remaining few games and with an injured T-Mac the entire series. So what happens when LA faces a revamped Spurs team and even hungrier contenders in Denver and Houston? Who knows. All that is clear is that this team needs to find a reason to play hard now before they give up home court advantage through out the playoffs as the result of a lazy start in November.

@DinoGomez