It’s Time to Leave the Nest

The concerns came true. The Lakers’ longest home stand in 18 years, a seven-game set that arrived amid worries that the team would become complacent with too much time in town, ended Friday night against the Golden State Warriors with an overriding fact.

“You’re looking at a team that had lost two at home all year and then lost two in one week,” Coach Del Harris said of the defeats to Portland last Thursday and Detroit last Saturday. “So I’m not real happy about that, and the players aren’t either.”

How much of that can be traced to the original concerns, of course, is subjective. But from the man who said way back at the start, on Jan. 8, that “it’s hard to be home for an extended period of time and still remember what you’re here for,” comes a vote.

“I know we got beat by Portland, which is playing well, and Detroit has a great record,” Harris said. “But we felt like we could have and should have won both games.”

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They had the sixth-best record in the league heading into Friday night, and the third-best in the Western Conference, but the Lakers also seem to have everything to prove to some people. Charles Barkley long ago discounted their chances for this season, and now comes Kenny Anderson of the Trail Blazers.

“Nothing against them, they’ve got great players, but with teams like Houston and Seattle and Utah, you know what you’re going to get night in and night out,” Anderson told the Portland media. “With the Lakers, you don’t know.”