Is There Time for Laker MASH Unit to Mesh?

The more the Lakers talk, the more the sound resembles whistling past the graveyard.

They found out Saturday that Kobe Bryant’s latest shoulder injury would cost them his services, perhaps for a week, perhaps for a month.

“We’re trying to be optimistic about it,” Coach Phil Jackson said.

“If we get through this next seven to 10 days with a pretty good record, I think we’re in pretty good shape,” Derek Fisher said.

They say that because they have to, and because they’re not inclined to roll over and quit. But sooner or later the constantly changing lineups will prove to be an insurmountable obstacle for this team. Either the lack of familiarity or a lower playoff seeding will cost them.

You need an air traffic controller to sort out all of the players taking and leaving the court for the Lakers. On Saturday Bryant dropped by after taking an MRI exam on the shoulder he re-injured against Seattle the night before, Karl Malone practiced without restrictions for the first time in 2 1/2 months, and Horace Grant ambled in wearing sandals, hoping to get the word on a rehabilitation program for his strained hip.

The bad news on Bryant meant the Lakers couldn’t even get too excited about the pending return of Malone, who sprained a ligament in his right knee Dec. 21. Malone and Bryant will travel with the team on the four-game trip to Utah, Boston, Minnesota and Chicago that begins Monday, but it doesn’t look as if they will play. Jackson wants a few more practices for Malone, and the doctors want another look at Bryant after a week.

Let’s say Malone and Bryant return for the March 15 game against Orlando and remain in the lineup. That would give them 16 games together before the end of the regular season, plus the 23 they had before Malone was injured. Now remember a critical element of Malone’s success in Utah: He and John Stockton played more than 1,450 games together.

Of greater concern is the lack of time Bryant and Gary Payton have spent on the court. Payton has been the one constant in the Laker lineup, there through the injuries to Malone and Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. But when Bryant began to assert himself after the All-Star break, it came at Payton’s expense. Payton isn’t used to standing around and watching others work, and catching and shooting the spot-up jumper isn’t one of his strengths. He would rather have the ball in his hands, drive and pass out to Bryant for the open shot, the way it worked earlier in the season.

Still, trying to get great players to work with other great players is the “challenge” every coach wants. It sure beats Jackson’s current predicament: trying to find a way to win games without the player who has been the driving force in eight of their nine victories since the break.

Bryant hurt the shoulder Friday as he was trying to free his right arm from Seattle’s Ray Allen, just as Reggie Evans was setting a screen on Bryant. The diagnosis was a strained shoulder, the same injury that kept him out of six games in January.

“Right now there’s swelling in the joint,” Jackson said. “There’s no pain, even though he’s able to talk about the fact that it’s not as bad as the last time. That’s the optimistic part of it.”

The bleaker scenario would have Bryant’s returning for the April 2 game at Seattle. He might want to skip that one regardless. Bad things happen when the Lakers play the SuperSonics. O’Neal strained his right calf at Seattle on Jan. 2 and sat out the next 12 games. Within 24 hours of playing Seattle at home on Jan. 28, Bryant sliced his right index finger and sat out seven more games. Friday, Bryant went down again.

Based on Bryant’s resiliency and his strong desire to play, the players think he’ll be back sooner rather than later. That doesn’t mean he’ll have an immediate impact. In his first two games back from the last shoulder injury he made only 12 of 30 shots, and he could be seen rubbing the shoulder at times.

It’s all about playoff seeding right now. The Lakers can forget about catching the Sacramento Kings at the top of the Pacific Division. Yes, at five games back the Lakers are still in the race, mathematically. And Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton are still candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, technically.

The Lakers trail Minnesota by 3 1/2 games in the race for the second-best record in the Western Conference and are only 2 1/2 games ahead of sixth-place Memphis. San Antonio and Dallas are jockeying with the Lakers for the third spot. The Lakers need to finish among the top four to start the playoffs at home.

The Lakers have won three of the last four series in which they didn’t have homecourt advantage and say they don’t worry about road playoff games.

But the Lakers are barely above .500 on the road this season, at 17-16. People talk about their 16-5 record with all four superstars -- but they were only 6-4 away from Staples Center. If they have to go to Sacramento or Minnesota in the second round, they’re going out.

As they start their last 21 games of the season -- the Final Fourth -- they still don’t know who they’ll have, when they’ll have them, or what they are.

It’s getting late, and there aren’t enough self-help books in print to let them find themselves, or their place in the Western Conference standings.

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