It's just as well the Lakers have a game on their schedule for Wednesday night. Tuesday's victory over the decaying organism known as the Chicago Bulls isn't one that we necessarily want to dwell on. It was choppy, uninspired and closer than it should have been. If the Lakers win another championship this year, very little from Tuesday's game will appear on the season-commemorative DVD. The final score was 96 to 87.

The good news, aside from the basic fact of the team's 19th win, is the return of Kobe Bryant's offensive game after the nightmare in Utah. Looking energized and much more comfortable with his jump shot, he dropped in 42 points on 64% True Shooting. His eight turnovers mean this won't go into the archives as one of his all-time great outings, but he did what needed done. It's not like there were a ton of other great scoring options on this occasion.

Aside from Kobe and Shannon Brown (4 for 4 off the bench), nobody on the Lakers had a good shooting night. The three-point game in particular continues to look ugly. After making only 3 of 21 from distance in Utah, the Lakers improved all the way to 4 for 20. Yuck. It was also a bad night on the boards.

The defense, however, by and large showed up. It didn't start out that way - the Bulls scored 14 points on their first eight possessions - but by midway through the first quarter the Laker D had its act together. Joakim Noah probably should not have been allowed to snare 14 offensive rebounds, though.

So northward to Milwaukee we go, 1-1 on the current road trip. Winning the second half of this back-to-back will require a cleaner, tighter performance.