I've been watching the NBA a long time - too long, perhaps - and I can't remember an instance of a team losing its top three big men all at once. That's what's befallen the Lakers, who saw Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Jordan Hill suffer new injuries or aggravations of old ones in their Sunday night loss to the Nuggets. We got nugged!

So tonight against the 20-14 Rockets we'll see Robert Sacre at starting center, somebody (Antawn Jamison? Metta World Peace?) at power forward and perhaps a big helping of Earl Clark off the bench. Obviously it feels like death's icy grip is tightening around this Lakers season, but imagine if this is the lineup that turns everything around. Crazier things have happened! (No, they haven't.)

Houston has won 11 of 14 to surge into the second tier of the West playoff bracket. They've suspended Royce White in the latest act of a rather unfortunate saga and Chandler Parsons is listed as questionable with flu-like symptoms. Otherwise they're at full strength, unlike their visiting opponents.