Lakers Need to Roll With Changes

What has eluded this Laker team more than anything in the last three months -- when players started going down and Kobe Bryant’s visits to Colorado started going up -- is consistency. It’s hard to get traction when the wheels keep changing.

The Lakers have had 16 different starting lineups this season, an average of one for every 3 1/2 games. It’s one reason that since their 10-game winning streak ended Dec. 12, they’ve had a tough time stringing together more than two victories in a row.

Bryant and the Lakers were two time zones apart Tuesday, and the Lakers and the Atlanta Hawks were possession-by-possession close. Then the Lakers wound up losing to one of the worst teams in the league, 94-93.

Bryant’s line in the official box score read “NWT [Not With Team] -- Personal Matter,” which is stat sheet-speak for “In Eagle, Colo., for a pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case.” He’s expected back for tonight’s game in Houston, so the Lakers will have to readjust to his presence.

And sometime in the next week, they’ll have to get used to the return of Karl Malone, who has missed the last 34 games with a sprained knee ligament. Then they’ll have to brace for starting another game without Bryant, whose next hearing is scheduled for March 24, the same day the Lakers play the Sacramento Kings.

“That’s why we’ve got to be ready to play every night, because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Gary Payton said.

Of course, this was just a short while after he analyzed this game against the Hawks and said: “From the get, we weren’t ready to play basketball.” (Coach Phil Jackson took the blame for that one).

Payton actually had a triple-double, with 23 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, but he missed a shot in the lane that could have put the Lakers ahead in the closing seconds.

And the defense that he and his teammates played wasn’t as tight in the first three quarters as it was in the fourth. The Lakers forced only two turnovers from the Hawks in the first 36 minutes of play. That enabled the Hawks to stick around despite shooting only 39.8% for the night.

Shaquille O’Neal’s interest waxed and waned, the Lakers’ commitment to getting him the ball down low faltered, and he wound up with only 23 points.

Not only were the Lakers unprepared at the start, they weren’t focused at the end, when they missed five of eight free throws in the final 4:30.

There will be more days when Bryant doesn’t play, perhaps even during the playoffs. Every day in court seems to be notable for what doesn’t happen -- in Tuesday’s case, his accuser didn’t testify as expected -- meaning more business gets pushed back to another day and possibly adds another trip to Bryant’s schedule.

Someone else could get injured. Another starting lineup might be necessary. More missed opportunities to practice together, more adjustments to be made.

“You tend to deal with a year like this like we’ve had, where at every turn there’s an issue to deal with, it becomes the norm, and it also becomes more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge to stay focused on the present and not deal with everything that’s happened in the past,” Rick Fox said. “Right now, from time to time, when we have changes in lineups or changes in the level of our play due to whatever reasons, I think we’ve succumbed to some of that. We haven’t been as solid mentally as we need to be or we haven’t pulled up the ranks as tightly as we should. That’s the function of an NBA season.

” ... We have a way of wallowing in it for a period of time, then pulling ourselves out of it. Nothing is easy for us.”

Not even a game against the lowly Atlanta Hawks.

No, this isn’t the same Hawk team the Lakers demolished by 46 points in L.A. on Jan. 9. It’s worse. Since then, Atlanta traded Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Theo Ratliff and Dan Dickau to Portland for Rasheed Wallace. Wallace played all of one game for the Hawks before they shipped him off to the Detroit Pistons for -- hold on, let me look this up -- Bob Sura, Zeljko Rebraca and a first-round pick.

These Hawks are so lacking in identity that only one of the four Atlanta jerseys for sale at the arena shop belonged to someone who was still on the team (Jason Terry).

Can you believe they actually made up Hawk jerseys for Wallace, who played all of one game for them? By the time they arrived, he was already gone -- an instant throwback. They’re already discounted by 27%.

The Lakers had been 5-2 in games with O’Neal and without Bryant. Now, if whatever edition they throw out can’t even beat a bunch of guys whose jerseys aren’t for sale, how are they supposed to overcome adversity against players you actually know?

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.