Thumbs down for Lakers!

The Lakers aren't playing very well. Kobe isn't shooting that great, but he's assisting okay. Artest looked like he really stepped up on defense. In some of the recent games, he had this many steals in consecutive games - 6,5,5, and 2. That is an average of 4.5 in those 4 games. So its good to see he stepped up on defense. However, there were times I saw he played some bad defense such as in the Magic game, even though he had "Defense" colored in his hair in 3 different languages. The Lakers don't have good flow at all. They are not playing well. Artest needs to shoot better too. Overall, everyone needs to step it up. They are on a 3 game losing streak - first in the Gasol era with the Lakers. They were a superior road team last year, not looking so great this year. Teams like Dallas are on a 11 game win streak. Boston is putting it together too. The Lakers better get on a roll toward the end here and ride high into the playoffs. They are losing their footing. They had a chance to have the best record. However, now a lock for Western Conference champion is not even a lock anymore. Lets see if they wake up and start playing better. Perhaps they have lost some of their edge.