Don't Look Now: The Pistons Are on a Roll

The revenge of Kobe and Phil

Wasn't Phil Jackson's reunion with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles supposed to keep the soap opera alive in Los Angeles? Weren't they supposed to bump heads repeatedly, with Jackson writing more scathing entries about Bryant's selfish play in his diary? So far, Jackson has decided to let Kobe be Kobe, and following the Lakers' hideous 5-8 start to the season they have helped each other earn a semblance of redemption this season. "Having Phil back makes it different. Playing with him is very familiar to me. I know what he expects. By understanding his leadership and what he expects of me makes it more enjoyable," Bryant said. We're doing okay. We are a young team. We still have a lot to learn. The fact that we're more than keeping our head above water is good."

With the Lakers now 15-13, Jackson is proving that he is more than just a coach who "picks his spots" -- as Red Auerbach said early this year -- and takes ready-made contenders to the top. The Lakers don't have much else outside of Bryant, who is the league's second-leading scorer at 32.2 points per game -- almost 17 points more than second-leading scorer Lamar Odom (no other team in the league has such a gap between it's top two scorers). Players such as Smush Parker, Chris Mihm and Brian Cook probably wouldn't start for most of the teams in the NBA, but Jackson is already talking about the postseason.

"It's an overall picture. This month things have gone better for us. We're seeing growth," said Jackson. "We were telling them in November that we're going to be better in December. I'm hoping at the end of this month, I can tell that we're going to be better in January. If we fulfill that expectation then we'll be a playoff team and we'll compete for the playoffs. These guys like to play together. They compete together. Kobe is having a great year, giving us an opportunity to fill in the spaces around him and behind him."

Bryant accounts for about one-third of the Lakers' 96.3 points per game and his 62-point performance against Dallas opened up more discussions about Bryant being a ball hog (he averages 26 points per game). But Jackson defends Bryant's shot selection, knowing that there are games -- such as last Sunday in Miami -- when some of the Lakers' young players get that "deer in the headlights look" and Bryant is forced to carry his teammates along until they get comfortable on the floor. "It's a game-to-game basis for us," Jackson said. "There are some games when he comes out and things are just flowing for everybody else and it's great."

But there are nights like Monday in Washington, when Bryant has no help and his frustrations spill over on the floor, as he chastised his teammates for most of the Lakers' 94-91 loss. Bryant said he has been motivated by a number of factors this season -- from making third-team All-NBA to missing the playoffs for the first time in his career last season, which he said was "hurtful." Bryant doesn't want the momentum of a 10-win month to slip away. "We just have to gain it back, go out and snatch it. It's a roller-coaster year; it's a long year. We knew we would have peaks and valleys. Now it's time to peak again."

Jackson was asked if he felt Bryant, who debuted his first signature Nike shoe this week, had turned a corner in terms of public perception this season. If the boos Bryant heard in Miami and Washington said anything, it's that he still has work to do. "I was disappointed with people in Miami. He played a great game and they gave him, 'Kobe [stinks],' " Jackson said after Bryant scored 37 points in the Christmas matchup with the Heat. "I thought that was poor sportsmanship."

While Jackson is optimistic about how much better the Lakers can get, the legendary coach won't get carried away. After all, the Lakers were 16-12 after their first 28 games under Rudy Tomjanovich. They finished the season with 33 wins. "We're a team learning how to play together and we see signs that this team has got a chance to be pretty good," he said. "We don't expect to be in the Finals right now. We're not saying that we're that elite team. We certainly like the way we're playing ball and we're competitive."

Team of the Week

New Jersey Nets

This is more like it. With what Cleveland Coach Mike Brown called "three legitimate all-stars" in Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson, the Nets always had the talent to get hot and run off an extended winning streak. They have won seven in a row and knocked off some impressive teams along the way -- the Pat Riley-led Miami Heat, the then-Pacific Division-leading Los Angeles Clippers and the surging Cleveland Cavaliers. Carter's scoring spree has captured most of the headlines in the past two weeks -- especially after he dropped a career-high 51 on the Heat -- but the Nets' run cannot be discounted as a one-man show. Carter had what amounted to a mortal effort (21 points, nine rebounds) against the Cavaliers on Tuesday and the team was still able to halt Cleveland's six-game win streak with the help of Jefferson and Kidd. In the past two games, Jefferson, who has yet to make an all-star team, has shot 17 of 19 and scored 51 points, while Kidd has had at least nine assists in five of the past seven games. The Nets have also been able to get solid performances from their role players, even though the statistical contributions don't always jump out. Case in point: Jason Collins had no points, no rebounds and one block against Cleveland. That block, however, came after the Cavaliers had cut down an 18-point deficit to six points in the fourth quarter and led to a momentum-changing shot clock violation. Coach Lawrence Frank has urged his team not to get complacent. "There's a lot of areas we can continue to get better at. We have to continue work to get better," he said.

Team of the Weak