From comfort of home to road rigors

The Berlin Wall had just been reduced to rubble the last time the Lakers did something like this.

They will play eight road games and travel 9,600 miles in 13 days, their longest trip since going 5-3 on an eight-gamer in December 1989.

It’s called payback for an early home-friendly schedule that included 16 of their first 20 games at Staples Center. The Lakers, 8-11 this season on the road, could probably use a little time away after home losses to Charlotte and San Antonio at Staples.

“I think everybody’s a little excited about the road trip,” Kobe Bryant said. “I know I am.”

The Eastern Conference teams they’re playing aren’t among the NBA’s greatest, beginning tonight with the New York Knicks. Of the Lakers’ eight opponents -- New York, Boston, Indiana, Washington, Atlanta, Detroit, Toronto and Cleveland -- only Washington, Detroit and Cleveland are more than two games over .500.

Along the way, the Lakers will experience a lot of frigid non-L.A. weather, collect their individual per diem of $106 a day and, they anticipate, get Luke Walton and Kwame Brown back from sprained ankles near the trip’s midpoint.

They also will encounter a scheduling rarity right away -- four games in five days, the only time they face such a situation this season.

Their only other lengthy trip this season, a six-gamer that included a Christmas Day loss in Miami, ended with a 3-3 record. This one will be longer and potentially more taxing. Or more binding.

“It can work either way,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “It can make a team come together. It can help a team fall apart.”

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Of the top teams in the West, the Lakers have the smallest differential in points scored and points allowed, Jackson noted grimly.

They are scoring 104.4 points a game and allowing 103, a margin of plus-1.4.

In contrast, Phoenix is plus-9.3 points a game, San Antonio is plus-7.9 and Dallas is plus-6.8.

“Our ‘points against’ versus ‘points for’ is dramatic,” Jackson said. “We’re, like, barely over plus. That’s a big part of the game, understanding how to hold people down.”

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Bryant will take part in the Skills Challenge on Feb. 17, the night before the All-Star game in Las Vegas. Bryant, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Steve Nash will try to get the best time in an “obstacle course” consisting of dribbling, passing and shooting stations.

TONIGHT

at New York, 4:30 (delayed, 5:30, Channel 9)

Site -- Madison Square Garden.

Radio -- 570, 1330.

Records -- Lakers 27-17, Knicks 19-27.

Record vs. Knicks (2005-06) -- 2-0.

Update -- Guard Jamal Crawford has scored 78 points in the Knicks’ last two games, including a 52-point outburst Friday against Miami. The Knicks have played somewhat better recently, going 6-7 in January. Kobe Bryant averaged 41 points in the Lakers’ regular-season sweep of the Knicks last season.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com