Check Out Ray’s NBA Plays Today!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nA story in the Orange County Register (http:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/sports\/howard-381534-lakers-nash.html) on Tuesday makes the point that Howard is still recovering from surgery on his herniated disc, that he is not yet in basketball shape and that he is still worried that he will never be able to play the way he did since coming into the league in 2004.<\/p>\n
“I never had a major injury before,” Howard was quoted as saying. “And I just have to keep fighting through it.”<\/p>\n
When the Lakers got Howard in the offseason in a three-way deal in which they unloaded a Queen Mary-sized load of trouble (Andrew Bynum), many in the league figured the Lakers would be able to overwhelm the NBA with talent.<\/p>\n
Bryant, Nash and Howard would be the new West, Baylor and Chamberlain, with perhaps the Heat and Thunder the only teams capable of staying with them.<\/p>\n
But Bryant (age), Nash (injury) and Howard all have had their issues, which may or may not be getting sorted out just now.<\/p>\n
LA has four straight wins (Washington, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Golden State), none of which are too significant.[ad-6571516]<\/p>\n
In addition to whatever is going on in Howard\u2019s head, he also has leg issues. He could go barely 29 minutes in the team\u2019s overtime win over Golden State a few days ago before fouling out.<\/p>\n
Despite it all, a victory today would bring the Lakers even at 14-14 and give the team some tailwind as it heads into a schedule in which 8 of the next 12 games are at home.<\/p>\n
If LA is to make a run and re-assert itself at least into a second-tier Western Conference contender (behind the Clippers and Thunder), Howard needs to once again become the Superman that he loved being before shooting his way out of Orlando. He wanted the big stage, and now that he has it, he\u2019s shrinking from the spotlight.<\/p>\n
And that will give the Lakers a lot to think about in the off-season when they swallow hard and nervously offer Howard a max contract.<\/p>\n
THE PICK<\/strong> \u2013 The Knicks held serve at home, going 4-2 at MSG in a run that started with a 9-poijnt victory over the Lakers in a high-scoring game.<\/p>\nThe teams put 223 points on the board (the O\/U was 206), so it\u2019s no surprise that oddsmakers have revised the total upward in this one (to 212). Time to come in with a play on the under as the teams dig in on defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Knicks vs Lakers NBA Handicapping Forget Kobe Bryant. Forget, for now, Steve Nash\u2019s return to the Lakers and what it means. The Lakers don\u2019t end the nonsense that has been the first two months of the NBA season and start to act like the dominant team we all thought they\u2019d be until Dwight Howard plays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":30058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[21642,22387,4045,57481,57482,6733,42418,57480,23074,57184,3942],"class_list":["post-58626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-christmas-day","tag-free-nba-hoops-prediction","tag-free-nba-picks","tag-knicks-lakers-free-prediction","tag-knicks-lakers-picks","tag-knicks-vs-lakers","tag-n-y-knicks-vs-l-a-lakers","tag-n-y-knicks-vs-l-a-lakers-odds","tag-nba-betting-picks","tag-nba-betting-prediction","tag-nba-handicapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58645,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58626\/revisions\/58645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}