Lakers’ Slide Not Yet Critical

It’s easy to explain what’s gone right for the Lakers lately.

They haven’t been blown out.

They’re fighting and hanging in there, taking games down to the last minute, and that accounts for all the positives in Lakerland these days.

Because they’re still coming up with Ls.

“We’ve lost four out of six games and we’ve had a lead in the fourth quarter in every single one of those games,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “So that’s not so bad. What’s bad about it is that we haven’t won at least two of them. That’s what you hope to do in a tight game situation, is kinda split ‘em up. It didn’t happen to us, and we’re going to have to go back and look at our criticals.”

Criticals? Things must really be out of balance when Jackson starts lapsing into coachspeak and sounding a lot like his old rival Pat Riley.

Jackson went on to define criticals as the things they are doing down the stretch that are critical.

Here’s what they’re not doing: Rebounding. Running the offense. Playing defense.

In other words, the things that led the Lakers to their 31-5 start and the things that will win games in the playoffs.

The losses to Indiana, Seattle, Portland and Utah did not reveal a glaring weakness in the construction of the team. The Lakers simply got away from the things that worked.

The Lakers are the top rebounding team in the league but were outrebounded in three of the four losses--most notably by an Indiana team that’s weak in that category.

Laker opponents shoot 41% for the season, but Indiana shot 48%, Portland shot 46% and Utah shot 45%.

Seattle was the exception to both of those statistical trends, but that game showed the Lakers’ most glaring defensive breakdown: allowing Gary Payton to rub off a screen and get an open look for the game-winning three-pointer.

All of those problems can be corrected through effort and sharper execution.

At least the Lakers aren’t making the same old mistakes as yesteryear. When the Jazz beat them in double-overtime, it was because Karl Malone drained outside jumpers, not easy baskets in the lane from pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll.

And the Lakers have picked up a bit of Jackson’s mellow persona and have taken these losses with unusual ease.

There’s a suspicion that Jackson doesn’t mind losing these games, that he’d happily lend the NBA’s best record to the Portland Trail Blazers for a couple of weeks to escape from coaching the Western Conference in the All-Star game next month.

If Jackson would rather head to the woods than Oakland for the weekend, that’s fine. But I’m sure he’s aware of the treacherous path that lurks when the action resumes Feb. 15. It won’t be easy to get these games back and reclaim the best record in the West (with the home-court advantage in the playoffs that comes with it).

Portland has only 13 road games after the all-star break. The Lakers have 20. And the Lakers get right into it with a six-game Eastern Conference swing beginning Feb. 15. The Trail Blazers begin with an away-and-home set with Golden State and a visit from the Washington Wizards. Talk about easing your way back into it.

The other reason Jackson’s disposition remains upbeat despite the recent slump is the losses help his argument that the Lakers need to make a roster move.

P.J. Brown is the only name that ever made sense for the Lakers, and his name isn’t bobbing up in the trade waters very often these days. Besides, could Riley swallow enough ego to swing a deal that would help out Jackson and Jerry West?

So there’s no need to trade just to trade.

If the Lakers don’t want to expend huge dollars for Glen Rice and he doesn’t want to come back, then wait until the end of the season and send him off in a sign-and-trade deal that would at least allow the Lakers to get a player of similar magnitude (or even higher--dare we think Grant Hill?).

Rice would make a more attractive target to another team under those circumstances than he would now, when he’s in the last year of his contract and not guaranteed to stick with the team that trades for him.

Even now, Rice has too much value to trade him for a mere backup component part. The Lakers ought to get something good for a guy who can score in the 20s (he’s averaging 17 points as the third option on the Lakers).

They definitely can do better than Wizard center Ike Austin. The Lakers need someone besides Shaquille O’Neal to bang bodies inside, but Austin is so reluctant to mix it up down low that he’s losing the respect of his teammates in Washington. One sign of Austin’s inactivity is his free-throws-per-game average of 2.3. Centers ought to draw enough contact to make more than one trip to the line a night.

If that would be the best the Lakers can do, why bother?

They should stand pat.

Hmmm, the coach probably doesn’t like that word. OK then, stand Phil.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com