March 10, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Chicago Bulls shooting guard Marco Belinelli (8) is defended on a scoring drive by Los Angeles Lakers power forward Antawn Jamison (4) during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Back to today’s game, both teams came out terribly in the first quarter. The Bulls couldn’t get a shot, nevertheless make one, while the Lakers could get a shot at ease, just couldn’t convert them. The big story of this quarter was Luol Deng on Kobe Bryant. Kobe couldn’t get anything, and ended the quarter scoreless, a rarity for Bryant. But of course, Bryant found some way to influence the game, facilitating wonderfully for his teammates, especially Metta World Peace. Much to Kobe’s dismay, World Peace finished the quarter 0-4 from behind the arc, all wide open off passes from Bryant. This was just an ugly quarter for the Bulls, with nobody scoring over four points. Dwight Howard dominated Joakim Noah on the glass and finished the quarter with 6 points and 7 rebounds in a 20-16 lead for the Lakers.

To the second quarter, Marco Belineli and Nazr Mohammed ran the first half of the quarter. This obviously couldn’t keep up forever, and like it or not, it became Nate Rob time. Robinson came in and buried a corner three, followed by a sweet floater right over the fingertips of Dwight Howard as he drew the foul. The Lakers held the lead for the quarter, though it was never too big. At halftime, the Bulls found themselves still down, 40-44 in an ugly offensive game for both teams. Robinson was leading the way with 13 points and 5 assists.

Starting the second half, Steve Nash came out for the Lakers on fire, with 7 points in the first three minutes. It was all Lakers for this quarter, with the Bulls going scoreless for 4 and a half minutes in the middle of the quarter. But just when you thought it was all over, the Bulls pull an 8-0 run to cut the lead to ten with 2 minutes left as Jeff Van Gundy went on to roast Bulls management for letting Omer Asik walk in free agency. Besides the little run the Bulls went on, this was an awful quarter in which they shot 29% from the field. Joakim Noah was the only bright spot in the quarter, finally starting to hit the boards hard. The third quarter ended at a score of 61-73, Lakers on top.

The fourth quarter was hard to watch for Bulls fans. The Lakers came out and scored six straight, essentially ruling out any chance of a comeback for the Bulls. Down by double digits the whole quarter, the Thibodeau-coached Bulls didn’t stop playing. And of course, the starters played the whole game, even when the game was out of reach. The final score was 81-90, with the Lakers winning their fifth game in the last six while the Bulls lost their third in the last four.

The big story of this game was rebounding. The Bulls, always at the top of the league in rebounding, got demolished on the boards, especially by Howard, who finished with 21 rebounds. The final tally of 46-50 does not tell the story of how the game really went, as the Bulls got plenty of rebounds in garbage time. At halftime, the Lakers had the advantage on the glass of 29-18.

The other reason for this loss was, as it has been all season, not being able to score the basketball. The Bulls shot 33-89 (37.1%) in a game to forget as quickly as possible for Bulls fans.

The only good thing that can be taken today is that the Bulls don’t play again until Wednesday at Sacramento. The three day break could give a certain someone a little bit of recovery time for his hamstrings, which I’m sure will only add fuel to the fire as the Bulls wait for their savior, Derrick Rose, to return.

If you’re questioning this team’s success, I would like to remind you that simply having Dwight Howard wearing your uniform all but guarantees a top defense, and the same goes for Steve Nash and offense. Yes, Mike Brown is still the coach and the bench is…meh at best and Kobe is getting older, but those top four are fearsome. Nash/Howard pick and rolls are probably as close as it gets to guaranteed points, and if and when Nash plays off the ball, you have the best shooter of all time spotting up on the weakside while you still have to deal with Dwight and/or Kobe and/or Pau. That’s not even fair.

— Pacific Division 2012-2013 Preview: I Can’t Stand The Lakers (10/25/2012)

Yeah…about that.

So, as it turns out, it wasn’t quite that simple. Yes, there have been mitigating factors: Nash, Howard, Pau Gasol, Jordan Hill and Steve Blake have all missed significant time with injuries — Hill is out for the season — and Dwight is clearly not 100 percent after a back injury forced him to miss the end of last year and have surgery in the offseason. Said injuries have thrown LA’s bench into chaos, with players’ roles changing from game to game, largely by necessity. And Dwight, who should be able to make the defense solid by himself, just isn’t the same player. His offensive game fluctuates on a game-to-game basis, but his defense has been pretty meh all year. 82games.com tells us that the Lakers allow about 107 points per 100 possessions with Howard on the court. That’s terrible. The historically awful Charlotte Bobcats of last season gave up points at only a slightly higher rate than that.

Jan 20, 2013; Toronto, ON, Canada; Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard (12) reacts to a technical foul called against him against the Toronto Raptors at the Air Canada Centre. The Raptors beat the Lakers 108-103. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

To be perfectly fair, the rest of the team is hardly without fault in that. Steve Nash and Pau Gasol are solidly below average defensively — an understatement in Nash’s case and a product of position in Gasol’s, more on that later — to say nothing of Kobe Bryant, who is more or less awful defensively these days. He’s above-average when defending the ball, I guess, but his off-ball defense is atrocious. If you don’t believe me, go read this excellent breakdown from a couple of weeks ago. The Artist Formerly Known As Ron Artest is solid, but he’s getting old and can only do so much.

The Lakers’ struggles ultimately come down to a couple of things: terrible injury luck, as detailed above, poor defense — eight of their 10 most-used lineups give up points at a significantly below average rate, per 82games — and the fact that their best five players can only kind of play together.

That last one is hard to explain, but here’s the most important piece: Pau Gasol is not a power forward. He’s a center. It’s kind of unclear if he’s a good center or not — I would say he probably is, but that’s mostly just an opinion — but he’s a center. He struggles to guard power forwards and he’s best off playing from the foul line down. Unfortunately, with Dwight Howard around, that’s both impractical and unproductive. Furthermore, Mike D’Antoni’s system calls for the power forward to help space the floor, and Pau can only sort of do that. He’s not a three-point shooter, as much as D’Antoni would clearly like him to be, and while he’s hit a decent number of his shots from 16-to-23 feet, he’s struggled from everywhere else except at the rim.

So, the solution is simple: trade Gasol, or stagger his minutes such that he and Dwight spend as little time on the court together as possible. That doesn’t really fix everything, given that the plan was always to have Nash/Kobe/The Artist Formerly Known As Ron Artest/Gasol/Dwight close games, but it’s entirely possible that it’s just not a good idea. Then again, it’s hard to think anyone is going to give the Lakers fair market value for Gasol right now. But it is the Lakers…

Anyway, LA is currently 12th (!!!) in the West, only a game and a half ahead of the Sacramento Kings. They’re starting to seem like longshots to even make the playoffs, and a championship is basically a pipe dream at this point. Dwight needs to get healthy, Pau needs to figure things out and they need a lot of luck. But it’s the Lakers, so don’t count them out entirely. These things always seem to work out for them.

The Lakers take on the Chicago Bulls tonight at the United Center. Tipoff will be around 7:30 central time.