Trying times in Lakers’ world: OMG, they lost a game!

These are the times that try men’s souls?

Not that it takes much to try souls these days in Lakerdom, or Cavalierdom, or Whereverdom.

So, it wasn’t altogether surprising to see the Lakers’ Game 3 loss, cutting their lead over the Jazz to 2-1, taken as a signal of impending doom.

One website led with headlines blaring:

“Are Lakers losing Kobe Bryant’s waiting game?”

“Lakers in need of a wake-up call.”

“Lakers might make a change at center.”

And that was The Times’ Lakers page.

In the really excitable world of talk radio, blogs, et al., which are to sports what road rage is to human speech, one of our editors summarized the reaction as “Trade Andrew Bynum, sign Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”

Not that every Lakers fan shifted his fire from Jordan Farmar, in the sure knowledge that Bynum’s eight games since he returned were enough to write off the best young center of his generation.

(Farmar, another former local favorite from the Valley and UCLA, is under so much fire in e-mails to our beat guys that Brad Turner just broke new ground in sports journalism, announcing on latimes.com he’s through talking about it.)

However, there was a loud anti-Bynum vote. As far as press goes, it was Andrew’s worst week since you-know-who’s videotaped parking-lot address.

Wrote Jim S.:

“Andrew Bynum, playoff force, guaranteed cost $40 million during the next three seasons. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. . . .

“Plenty of dogs like Benoit Benjamin can average big numbers while the games are in December and January. The Times said that Andrew’s a monster numerous times. Monsters don’t average 7 points per game over three playoff games, or get five fouls in seven minutes of play. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

Jim gave his last name, which I’m withholding to spare him embarrassment if Bynum becomes a five-time All-Star.

Of course, if Bynum misses, I expect to hear from Jim a few more times. Ha, ha, ha, etc.

I understand. You wake up grumpy, read something that ticks you off -- in the wrong mood, the weather report may do it -- the writer’s e-mail address is right there, and bombs away!

One day before the Iraq war, I read a column by a New York Times guy, defending Richard Perle, the fervent hawk, of whom then-U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel had said, “Maybe Mr. Perle would like to be in the first wave into Baghdad.”

I e-mailed the columnist, asking if he’d like to take Perle’s place on the first wave. To my surprise, the writer not only replied personally, he was nice, although he declined my invitation.

His name is Bill Keller, and he’s now the editor of the paper. Happily, I have a job, at the moment, anyway.

Back in Lakerdom, if you’re wondering what all the excitement was about, there actually was something going on, if not enough to have a cow over.

Bynum is having problems. Aside from his stamina, he doesn’t have his explosion, suggesting his legs aren’t back, although he says his knee brace is the problem.

Whatever it is, he has averaged 4.0 rebounds and 1.0 block since his return, versus 8.0 and 1.8 before he left.

Why is anyone surprised? He missed 10 weeks.

However, if Bynum was a problem, he wasn’t the problem. Nor was Kobe Bryant’s five-for-24 flameout in Game 3.

Bryant is the Lakers’ fail-safe device. When everything else fails, they give him the ball, get out of the way and let him try to win the game all by himself.

With Utah Coach Jerry Sloan aiming his defense at him, Bryant had gone into playmaker mode, and one thing about his modes, as well as his moods, whatever he does, he does all the way.

He started Game 3 like the others, not looking for his shot. When he reached back for it, it wasn’t there.

Nevertheless, the key number in Game 3 was 13 -- the Lakers’ lead in the middle of the third quarter, despite Bryant’s woes.

The real problem was the Lakers’ attitude, which was awfully casual for this time of year.

Whenever they started to score in bunches, they began letting the Jazz score in bunches too. As Coach Phil Jackson said of his players, “They score so easily.”

After letting the Jazz cut a 22-point lead to nine in Game 1, and a 20-point lead to three in Game 2, the Lakers blew all of their 13-point lead in Game 3.

At that point, Jackson, who had been making excuses for his players -- in Game 2, he blamed his own substitutions -- decided this was enough, noting, “We let our guard down.”

Then Bryant had one of his Only-Kobe nights in Game 4, everyone kept playing after they got a big lead, and it became the mismatch everyone expected all along.

Sloan later noted ruefully that in his day, he would, at least, have fouled out guarding Bryant.

Of course, not only is Ronnie Brewer not Sloan, no one else ever has been, either.

“Don’t ever think a player of Kobe Bryant’s ability won’t fight back,” Sloan said. “We had two of those guys [Karl Malone and John Stockton] on this team at one time and if they had a bad game, they came back and gave you everything they had. . . .

“I never said we stopped Kobe Bryant. I knew better. For anyone to go out there and think they’re going to stop him -- the number of times he’s scored huge points is amazing, but that’s who he is.

“That’s where you have to fight back and know he’s coming at you, both barrels.”

That’s where the Jazz is now, down 3-1, a long way from home, staring into both barrels, even if they don’t make mismatches the way they used to.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com