No time to dwell on who’s missing

DALLAS -- This is the way it will be the rest of the way for the Lakers.

They will have exhilarating highs like they did in the first half Tuesday, when they shared the ball, shattered the Dallas Mavericks’ best defensive intentions and floated their way to a 25-point lead on Kobe Bryant’s mind-boggling, 360-degree, contortionist layup.

But they will also have moments like they did in the second half, when their defense collapsed and they got suckered into taking fouls and what seemed to be a laugher in the making turned into a fourth quarter guard Sasha Vujacic described as “nerve-breaking.”

For the Lakers, 102-100 winners thanks to Dirk Nowitzki’s missed three-point attempt just as time expired, life without the injured Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol has often been harrowing.

And there’s no telling when that will change.

Bynum’s much-anticipated return, delayed several times past the original eight-week estimate for him to recover from a dislocated kneecap, was again pushed back Tuesday by Coach Phil Jackson.

It’s likely to be at least three more weeks before Bynum can take part in serious basketball-related activity. Even then, Jackson said, his progress will depend on the amount of swelling in his knee. A return for the first round of the playoffs is now a hope, not an expectation, and that’s deflating.

Gasol, out the last three games, was still using crutches Monday and was walking around the visitors’ locker room at the American Airlines Center on Tuesday with a wrap on his sprained left ankle. The Lakers have been vague about his return, but he certainly won’t play at Utah on Thursday.

The Lakers miss their size, scoring and sureness in the post, and have scrambled every game to compensate. In a playoff race as tight as the Western Conference has become, losing Bynum and Gasol may still cost the Lakers home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, and beyond.

On Tuesday, at least, they got around it with a big first half, 21 points from Vladimir Radmanovic -- matching his season-best total -- 29 points from Kobe Bryant on 12-for-23 shooting, and 17 points and 17 rebounds from an energized Lamar Odom.

“It was a tough game. If we give that game away it would be you know, really crazy,” said Vujacic, who finished with six points.

“We remained calm at the end, and we just managed to win.”

Jackson suggested it was one of the biggest of the Lakers’ 46 victories this season, and it may have been.

It was definitely the biggest one until the next one.

“Exactly,” Ronny Turiaf said.

“I don’t think I can just rank any kind of victory now.”

Just call it much enjoyed by the Lakers (46-21), who are tied with Houston for the top record in the West and are one game from completing a four-game trip that is even tougher than the nine-game odyssey they took in January and February.

They had a few soft opponents on that one but no chance to relax during this journey to New Orleans, Houston -- where they were the last victim in the Rockets’ 22-game winning streak -- Dallas and finally to Utah on Thursday.

Their four opponents were 177-87 and had a cumulative 107 home wins before the Lakers came to town. The Lakers now have a chance to finish this trip 2-2.

“As far as quality of the team, I don’t think you can find any better quality of the team,” Turiaf said. “We’re doing a good job and hopefully we’re going to keep on doing it.

“The last two games we give it away, and to come back in a hostile environment like here is very important. And the next game is even more important. . . . It’s going to be another tough game in another tough environment and we should be up to the challenge.”

They have no choice.

Without Bynum and Gasol and with so many teams so close behind them -- New Orleans is 45-21, Utah is 45-24, Phoenix is 45-22 and a suddenly faltering San Antonio is 44-23, just ahead of the 44-24 Mavericks -- the Lakers have no way to slide by if they aren’t up to the challenge in any game.

Vujacic called Tuesday’s game “a good learning experience,” and the Lakers were happy to get that lesson in a victory and not a loss.

“We should have closed that game in the third quarter and never let them come back,” Vujacic said.

“But with the home crowd, they play good. We stopped executing on offense and then the lack of defensive effort came along. We didn’t play as we know how to play.”

At least they have learned they can’t wait for Bynum and Gasol to return and rescue them.

“I think about them before the game and after the game but during the game we can’t think about what we don’t have,” Turiaf said.

“We have to be confident in our abilities to win basketball games. We’re going to try to make this last until those guys come back and it’s going to be a huge relief when those guys come back because they bring so much to the table.”

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Helene Elliott can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.