Though Panic Hasn’t Set In, Jackson Seeks Right Answers

The Lakers went through half a season without losing consecutive games, but Monday night’s double-overtime loss to the Utah Jazz, after Saturday’s home loss to Portland, marked the Lakers’ first two-game skid of 1999-2000.

It was also the team’s fourth loss in the six games since the end of the Lakers’ 16-game winning streak, and the third consecutive tight defeat to a Western Conference rival, following losses to Seattle and Portland.

After going 38 days without a loss, could a 2-4 stumble--and the subsequent alarm-bell mentality--midway through the season be good?

“Who knows?” Coach Phil Jackson said late Monday. “This is good for us to play close games. We’d like to win some of these close games--we’ve lost three of them in the last week.

“We’ll just have to find our way through these types of things.”

Jackson has said that the Lakers probably weren’t as good as they looked during the 16-game streak--only seven of the victories came against teams with .500 records or better at the time.

The four teams that beat the Lakers in the last 11 days had a combined .685 winning percentage (100-46) when the Lakers played them and currently all have .620 winning percentages or better.

Guard Derek Fisher said it’s hard to find solace in hard-battled defeats but said nobody on the Lakers is hyperventilating.

“We have a feel for what’s going on,” he said. “But we’re just having a hard time getting it done out there on the floor. We’ll be OK. We aren’t panicking.”

Before Monday’s game, Jackson said he didn’t think his team was playing poorly--only that his players were lacking zip in crucial stages.

“We’re playing OK--not enough energy to win down the stretch,” Jackson said. “Two games that we had a lead all the way through.

“That Portland second half, except with four minutes to go. . . . It was a one-point ballgame and they got four shots at the basket with a minute to go, kept getting the ball back. . . .

“Those are the things, you get a bad bounce here or there, you make it up through hustle. And I don’t think we hustled hard enough or played hard enough in that stretch.”

Jackson gave the team Tuesday off, but, with the next game not scheduled until Friday’s home meeting with the Milwaukee Bucks, said he planned a hard practice today.

“I want to take them to another level as far as some of the things we’re trying to do with this team,” Jackson said.