The Lakers' woes appear to be in the rear-view mirror.

I say appear, because we all know how crazy this season has been thus far and there's always the propensity for it to get crazier.

If things go as planned, the Lakers will have both of their big men on the floor in a matter of games. Not weeks, not months. GAMES.

First order of business--Jonathan Abrams at The LA Times is reporting:

"The Lakers received their most upbeat medical report in weeks after practice on Tuesday: Pau Gasol is expected to play tonight when the Lakers play host to the Portland Trail Blazers, after missing nine games because of a sprained left ankle.

Gasol underwent a full practice Tuesday, afterward labeling his ankle a little sore but showing progress.

His ankle is not fully healed but good enough to give it a go tonight.

"That's the main question, right?" Gasol said. "If nothing crazy happens and the ankle responds well to the work today, I think it's a pretty good guess that I'll be out there."

Gasol is averaging 18.9 points and 8.5 rebounds. He has played 19 games at center for the Lakers, filling in for injured Andrew Bynum, since being acquired in a Feb. 1 trade. The Lakers are 15-4 with Gasol in the lineup, and were 5-4 in his absence as Ronny Turiaf and DJ Mbenga played center and the team slipped a bit in a tight Western Conference race."

So, one piece to the puzzle is back. To boot, the news on the second piece to the LONG AWAITED twin-tower front line is good as well.

We know Andrew Bynum will be traveling on the Lakers upcoming two-gamer through Sacramento and Portland on Sunday and Tuesday.

"It's not really connected to his injury per se. It was just the amount of work that he's started to be able to do, which is impressive," Jackson said. "I told him to expect to go on the trip to Sacramento and Portland. Whether he can play or not, it may not be that time, but he's going to go through the workouts and practices and the pregame and whatever we have."

I wouldn't expect either Pau or Andrew to be 100%, but their returns are definitely going to be instrumental to the team's performance coming down the stretch.

Also, some rather niche things for the Lakers fans:

-If you didn't catch the news yesterday, the Lakers signed Ira Newble for the rest of the season. Newble only saw action in his first game in a Lakers uniform, scoring two points and pulling down two rebounds in 3:46 on March 21.

-Derek Fisher is listed in the Lakers' injury report as day-to-day with that partial tear of a tendon in his right foot. Fisher, who is expected to play, played through the pain on Sunday, scoring 17 points in 32:53.

Finally, for those of you as interested as I am about the $75,000 Alter-G Treadmill that has been making headlines, Lakers.com put out a video explaining the machine.


"It's a pretty sweet machine" - Chris Mihm


Lakers expect Gasol to play Wednesday [LA Times]
Bynum could be back with Lakers soon [LA Times]
Behind the Alter-G Treadmill [Lakers.com]