Los Angeles Lakers: Beware of Kobe Bryant and the Barbarians

Kobe Bryant has been playing angry for the past month or so. Can you really blame him? All this talk about the mighty Lakers playing second fiddle to the upstart Los Angeles Clippers has to be maddening to such a driven individual. While there are degrees of intensity apparent in any competition, Bryant's recent offensive onslaught is part sinister sorcery, part military genius and part offensive alchemy, as he is currently averaging 33 PPG and eight assists in the month of March. After being out of the playoff picture for most of the season, the Los Angeles Lakers have crept into the eighth and final playoff spot, formerly occupied by the Utah Jazz.  

With Bryant acting as the driving force, the Lakers have surged out of the gate since the All-Star break and are boasting a record of 9-4 in the month of February, and have started March off on the right foot as well with wins over the Atlanta Hawks, the Toronto Raptors and New Orleans Hornets.  

The short-sighted among us might ask why such a storied franchise as the Lakers would be celebrating sitting near .500 (33-31) this late in the season. They need only look to January to uncover an abysmal 5-11 record, and a 7-7 record looms not far behind that in December 2012. Yes, the raucous applauds you hear spilling from the Staples Center these days is not canned, digital or piped in. It's the real thing. 

Many basketball analysts had picked the Lakers as their most disappointing team in the NBA at the All-Star break. With all the attention swirling around their offseason acquisitions of center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash, the Lakers looked like the team to beat on paper.

But the rest of the league soon realized they were paper tigers, as Nash missed 24 games because of a fracture in his lower left leg and Dwight Howard's chemistry with Kobe Bryant was exposed as being non-existent. The nightmare continued for Lakers fans as Dwight Howard's na...