Lakers Operating on Only Four Cylinders.

With all due apologies to Shaquille O’Neal, the diesel engine that drives the current version of the Los Angeles Lakers is in serious need of a tune-up.

Having only four good cylinders—Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher—the Lakers engine cannot complete its drive to the NBA Championship in such a weakened condition.

Lakers coach, Phil Jackson, who has scenes from feature films spliced into the game tapes to motivate his players, used clips from Speed Racers for this semi-final round.  So far, It hasn't revved up those misfiring cylinders.

Maybe the Lakers need to have a critical injection of Gumout to flush away the sludge that has become the Lakers role players and so-called Bench Mob.

The number five cylinder, Vladimir Radmanovic, has been spotty all year. Without the constant prodding from Phil Jackson, Radmanovic would have conked out altogether.

The prodding and threatening to replace him with the recovering Trevor Ariza, prompted Radmanovic to come up with crucial three-point shots and 15 points altogether to help the Lakers win Game 5.

But how will Radmanovic play in the remaining games?

Jackson has often had to revert to a replacement cylinder, Luke Walton. The trouble with Walton is his inconsistency and the security of knowing he is locked into a nice fat contract over the next few years whether he produces or not.

Although Walton came up big in the Denver series, he has suffered from his familiar bout with inconsistency in this semi-final round.

If Walton had been functioning properly, the Lakers could have won Game 4 in Utah, and subsequently the series. But he let a much smaller opponent, Ronnie Price, block his wide open dunk shot from behind and later muffed a critical grab from Pau Gasol’s tap of a jump ball.

The three remaining cylinders or Bench Mob as they like to call themselves have been misfiring throughout the semi-final round. In fact, two of them, Rony Turiaf and Jordan Farmar, haven’t been doing much at all for the Lakers since the end of the regular season.

Turiaf even managed to commit an early flagrant 2 and get himself ejected from Game 4. Farmar looks like a deer in headlights every time Deron Williams dribbles toward him.

The only one of the Bench Mob to actually function at all in the postseason has been Sasha Vujacic. But his output has been tailing off ever since the Lakers swept the Denver Nuggets.

In the last game, for example, "The Machine," as Vujacic calls himself, was a pitiful 1 for 11 from the floor overall and 1 for 8 behind the three-point arc.

No doubt the Machine can definitely use a recharge.

As for the team in general, the four Laker starters can definitely use a back support. And I’m not just referring to Kobe Bryant. Pardon the pun. But the four main guys need to know that the other guys have their backs.

That’s not something Phil Jackson can coach. That’s something each one of them has to find inside himself.

If this doesn't happen, expect the Lakers to continue misfiring and sputtering along until they finally stall out.