Los Angeles Lakers Seating Chart

After a disappointing loss to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers came into this season motivated to get over that final hump and hoist the trophy in the air come June.

Things seemed to be setting up very nicely for a return trip to the NBA Finals until deja vu hit the team.

Center Andrew Bynum, who missed the second half of last season because of a serious knee injury, was rolled into by Kobe Bryant and suffered a similar such injury again this year.

He is expected to miss at least the next two months and very likely could be out the rest of the season. It has to be incredibly frustrating to Bynum and the team, as he had really played well the past few weeks.

Now it looks like the Lakers will have to move on without one of their top post players, a guy who really took a lot of the pressure off of fellow big man Pau Gasol. Opposing teams can now focus in on Gasol, which could slow down the team's offensive production.

Gasol is just going to have to step it up and get a little tougher in the low post. The Lakers probably wish they had Ronny Turiaf still on the team to help out Gasol and give them some depth at the center position.

However, you can't ever count out a team led by Kobe Bryant. The guard quickly showed he is more than willing to try and pick up the scoring slack, dropping 61 points in Madison Square Garden in the team's first game without Bynum.

Bryant won't be in his prime much longer, and I'm sure he knows that is the case. He can see that window just starting to close a little bit on his title hopes, so he will go all out the rest of the year to get this team to the Finals.

The team then turned around and beat the Boston Celtics in overtime on the road, which has to be considered some sort of statement game. Celtics star Kevin Garnett wasn't at his best as he still was recovering from the flu, but it is still a highly impressive win for the Lakers.

Whether or not Bryant's effort alone will be enough remains to be seen, but it sure will be fun watching him these next few months.