Lakers’ final home game before trip is no walkover

The Lakers will roll over the hapless Charlotte Bobcats tonight by 20 points, maybe 30, before finally hitting the road for a six-game trip that begins Friday and ends with stops in Boston and Cleveland.

Wait a sec.

The Lakers have lost four of their last five to the Bobcats?

A check of the box scores would confirm it, including a humbling 108-95 surprise last March at Staples Center, a loss so unacceptable that Lakers Coach Phil Jackson started his postgame news conference by saying, “I can’t explain it, so don’t ask me any questions.”

Then someone asked him a question, and he ended the interview session, smiling ruefully as he walked out the door.

The Lakers have won 14 NBA championships and were two victories away from a 15th last June, but something about the league’s newest franchise gets under their skin.

The Bobcats have an overall record of 127-245 in their five-year existence, but they are 4-4 against the Lakers.

Under first-year Coach Larry Brown, who is in his 24th season as an NBA head coach, Charlotte has developed into one of the league’s premier defensive teams.

That has been Brown’s staple throughout his career, and it’s no different now that he’s with the Bobcats.

“We think what they show best is that they are tenacious defenders,” Jackson said Monday after practice. “You’ve got to work to get the kind of shots you want.”

The stats show that the Bobcats give up only 93.4 points per game, fourth-best in the NBA.

“They are an aggressive bunch,” Kobe Bryant said. “They get after the ball. They’re incredibly athletic, and that’s always been a problem of ours in the past. Not so much this year because we have a lot of great athletes, so we’ll just have to see how it works.”

The Bobcats have an anchor in the middle in Emeka Okafor, a 6-foot-10 center who is tied with Lakers center Andrew Bynum for eighth in the league in blocked shots, each getting 1.7 per game.

Okafor is sixth in the NBA in rebounding, collecting 10.8 per game. Bobcats forward Gerald Wallace is sixth in the NBA in steals, getting 1.93 per game.

The Bobcats are 18-26 this season but are 11-10 since they acquired Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and Sean Singleton from the Phoenix Suns for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley on Dec. 10.

But what’s most impressive about the Bobcats is how they have been able to shut down opponents.

“They’ve been very good defensively,” Jackson said. “They keep the game in order and try and keep the scores low. They’ve done a good job of that.”

The Lakers (35-8) would be wise to win their last home game until Feb. 10.

After tonight, 22 of their next 31 games are away from Staples Center, making up for the fact that they have played a league-low 17 games on the road.

“Some of these guys have to go get suitcases again,” Jackson quipped.

If they play like they did Sunday against San Antonio, the Lakers could win just about anywhere -- Boston, Cleveland, the Arctic Circle.

Bynum unveiled a third consecutive game to remember, outplaying Tim Duncan in a 99-85 victory that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.

Bynum credited his recent uptick (15 points, 11 rebounds, four blocked shots against San Antonio) to extra work before practice.

“Seriously, everything I did in that game and the way I scored was the direct result of the work I put in the day before,” he said. “The dunk that I got off the offensive rebound, I came in [Saturday] and just worked off of jumping down off a block and exploding back up.

“And the jump hooks, we worked on two different jump hooks. It just paid off. That’s all that really happened.”

Bynum also said that assistant coach Brian Shaw had been urging him to get up and down the court more quickly.

Said Shaw, with a smile: “It took him four years to finally get it.”

One of the Lakers’ few concerns is Bryant’s dislocated right ring finger, a contributing factor to a minor shooting slump.

Bryant is shooting only 40% since injuring the finger eight days ago against Cleveland, but he said it was improving day by day.

“It feels a lot better. I expect to be back to 100% before I know it,” he said. “I shot the ball very well [Monday at practice] and didn’t really feel any pain expect for a couple times where I got hit on it.”

--

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

broderick.turner@latimes.com

--

Tonight’s game

Charlotte at Lakers

7:30, Staples Center, FS West