Lakers' final home game before trip is no walkover

The Lakers will roll over the hapless Charlotte Bobcats tonight by 20 points, maybe 30, before finally hitting the road for a six-game trip that begins Friday and ends with stops in Boston and Cleveland.

Wait a sec.

The Lakers have lost four of their last five to the Bobcats?

A check of the box scores would confirm it, including a humbling 108-95 surprise last March at Staples Center, a loss so unacceptable that Lakers Coach Phil Jackson started his postgame news conference by saying, "I can't explain it, so don't ask me any questions."

Then someone asked him a question, and he ended the interview session, smiling ruefully as he walked out the door.

The Lakers have won 14 NBA championships and were two victories away from a 15th last June, but something about the league's newest franchise gets under their skin.

The Bobcats have an overall record of 127-245 in their five-year existence, but they are 4-4 against the Lakers.

Under first-year Coach Larry Brown, who is in his 24th season as an NBA head coach, Charlotte has developed into one of the league's premier defensive teams.

That has been Brown's staple throughout his career, and it's no different now that he's with the Bobcats.

"We think what they show best is that they are tenacious defenders," Jackson said Monday after practice. "You've got to work to get the kind of shots you want."

The stats show that the Bobcats give up only 93.4 points per game, fourth-best in the NBA.

"They are an aggressive bunch," Kobe Bryant said. "They get after the ball. They're incredibly athletic, and that's always been a problem of ours in the past. Not so much this year because we have a lot of great athletes, so we'll just have to see how it works."

The Bobcats have an anchor in the middle in Emeka Okafor, a 6-foot-10 center who is tied with Lakers center Andrew Bynum for eighth in the league in blocked shots, each getting 1.7 per game.

Okafor is sixth in the NBA in rebounding, collecting 10.8 per game. Bobcats forward Gerald Wallace is sixth in the NBA in steals, getting 1.93 per game.

The Bobcats are 18-26 this season but are 11-10 since they acquired Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and Sean Singleton from the Phoenix Suns for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley on Dec. 10.

But what's most impressive about the Bobcats is how they have been able to shut down opponents.