Jackson sees no easy schedule

SALT LAKE CITY -- If Phil Jackson allowed himself a rare peek into the future, he would see a friendly Lakers schedule filled with plenty of home games and opponents with losing records.

Eleven of their last 14 games are at Staples Center, and seven are against teams that would miss the playoffs if they began today.

In other words, there are no more road trips against the top teams in the Western Conference. Dallas, New Orleans and San Antonio all must come to Staples Center.

Seattle (16-52), Charlotte (24-44), Memphis (16-51), Portland (35-33) and Sacramento (31-36) also will be at Staples Center, as will a designated road game against the Clippers (21-46).

Of course, with so many injured Lakers on the sidelines, Jackson sounded a distress signal when asked about the apparent effortlessness of the schedule.

“There’s nothing easy ahead of us that we see, so we’re going to have to play and compete,” he said.

Truly?

“The teams in the West that are playing spoiler roles are still Portland and Sacramento, and we have them four times” total, he said. “They’re very capable. As we saw a week ago, Sacramento came to our home court and beat us on our home court as a revenge game.”

But what about those other games?

“I don’t know if the Clippers can compete right now -- Minnesota or Seattle” too, he said. “They’ve got guys injured, guys are out. It’s depressing to play when you’ve got a surmounting record against you at this time of the year.”

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Jackson hoped his players weren’t counting on Andrew Bynum’s return to help their push for the top spot in the West.

“I hope he can play three or four or five games, maybe more, before the playoffs,” he said. “The reality is, getting into the flow of what we’re doing, he’s not going to help us get to the playoffs. We’re not going to put that kind of pressure on him to recover in time to do that.”

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The update on Pau Gasol was that there was no update.

“I’m not putting a timetable on this,” Jackson said. “I don’t anticipate probably in these next four games that he will play, but if he does, so much the better.”

Jackson spoke about Gasol before Thursday’s game against Utah, meaning there were three more games in question -- a back-to-back set Sunday and Monday against Golden State and a game Wednesday against Charlotte.

Gasol has sat out three games because of a sprained left ankle.

TONIGHT

vs. Seattle, 7:30, FSN West

Site -- Staples Center.

Radio -- 570; 1330.

Records -- Lakers 47-21; SuperSonics 16-52.

Record vs. SuperSonics -- 3-0.

Update -- Seattle has lost nine consecutive games and is only 6-29 on the road. Rookie guard Kevin Durant is averaging 19.5 points a game but shooting only 41.4%.

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com