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Touch up your spray tans, everyone. Get out your Ed Hardy shirts, tease your bangs with hair spray galore, and prep a few Jager bombs. Tonight we're going TO JERSEY, BRAH.

Slam a Jersey Shore cherry lemonade upon any discussion of the following.

• Snow.
• Whether Kobe Bryant should've been called for a charge against Milwaukee.
• The Celtics' loss last night.
• Whether the Nets will match or beat the NBA's all-time worst record.
• Bruce Springsteen.

I'm ready when you are.

Awwww. As Luke Walton's dad might say, "Throw it down, little man!"

Today's top story is that the shawty in the video goes to his right way better than Lamar Odom. SS&R's investigative branch has also learned that the kid may, in fact, start at power forward against the New Jersey Nets tomorrow night. If he works out, Jerry Buss is likely to pull the contract extension offered to Pau Gasol. Youth movement!

P.S. - This just in: Milwaukee Bucks fans thinks the kid should be called for a charge.

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It's so nice when loyalty is rewarded. You sit through two-and-a-half hours of a December game in Milwaukee, an often dreary game at that, and as a fan you deserve something fun to show for it. Stay cool, stay patient, don't change the channel, don't head out to dinner just yet. Kobe Bryant will make it worth your while.

Playing stage two of a road back-to-back set, the Lakers spent the night scuffling with a feisty Bucks squad - sometimes pulling a bit ahead, sometimes falling a bit behind, never quite seizing the win nor conceding the loss. Pau Gasol was beastly from beginning to end. He had a double-dub by halftime and finished with 26 points, 22 rebounds, four assists and four blocks. Kobe was on-and-off with his game, struggling with turnovers again but manufacturing points from midrange and the stripe. At the end of regulation, he missed a 15-footer that could have won the game.

At the end of overtime, though, he buried the shot that changed everything. It was a little 16-foot turnaround that we've seen a hundred times from him. The trajectory was perfectly on target, and it brought about a fairly stunning comeback win. The final score was Lake Show 107, Bucks 106.

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by Darren Hauck - AP

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I'm excited about this one. The Milwaukee Bucks have a number of interesting players, and they're not a team we often see on the talking video cube. Lots of absorbing individual matchups, too: Brandon Jennings vs. the Laker point-guard rotation, Andrew Bogut vs. Bynum and Gasol, Kobe vs. Mbah a Moute. Plenty for us to sink our teeth into tonight.

A mention of any of the following will be a drinking-game trigger:

• Brett Favre.
• Scott Skiles being a "hard-nosed" coach.
• The Lew Alcindor trade.
• 55 points.
• Cheese.

Chop, chop!

More photos » by Jim Prisching - AP

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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.

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by Mark J. Terrill - AP

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It's an early one tonight, kids. Jump time is 5:00 p.m. Pacific. I've barely had time this afternoon to eat my Honeycomb and read Ziggy, let alone prepare for hoops.

Word from the Lakers is that Kobe Bryant's stomach illness is gone. The avulsion fracture, of course, persists. He'll play through the pain tonight and got in some extra shooting practice at the United Center earlier today.

Drinking-game triggers are any mention of:

• Vinny Del Negro as "beleaguered."
• Taj Gibson having played at USC.
• The aborted Kobe-to-Chicago trade in 2007.
• Phil Jackson having once coached the Bulls.
• The Joakim Noah-LeBron scrape.

And take a big slug of your beverage of choice upon any Kobe-Michael Jordan comparison of any kind.

More photos » by Nam Y. Huh - AP

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The United States has an unemployment rate of 10%, yet Vinny Del Negro still receives a paycheck for coaching the Chicago Bulls. This is called market failure. Anyone outraged over Goldman Sachs bonuses should reroute a little populist anger toward Coach Vinny, as no one in America gets paid more for so little achievement. He's turned Derrick Rose and a bunch of other guys you've actually heard of into one of the suckiest teams in the league.

He'll be fired soon if there's even a tincture of sanity in this world, but luckily for Lakers fans it won't be until after tonight's game. The Lake Show kicks off a back-to-back at the United Center against the woeful Bulls, followed tomorrow by a visit to the Milwaukee Bucks. With their loss on Sunday to Utah, the Lakers ceded the league's best record to the Boston Celtics, who've been masterful at taking care of business on the road. There's a little urgency here for the Lakers to keep up, lest they start falling behind in the race for playoff home-court advantage.

These games really do matter.

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Last October, as part of our preview series, I published a piece here titled Stat Trends to Watch in the New Season. In it I broke down five statistical issues I thought would be especially telling as the Lakers' title defense got underway. The season has reached and passed the quarter pole, and with a short break in the action - the Lakers are off until tomorrow night - now's a good time to revisit those five issues to see how things are shaping up.

Not surprisingly given the Lake Show's 18-4 start, the news is mostly good. It's still early and we're dealing with smallish sample sizes, but the way the numbers are breaking bodes well for this year's team. Let's dive right into another Laker Stats Orgy.

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You know it. I know it. Kobe knows it. Most of all, the Utah Jazz know it.

To say that he shouldn't have played tonight isn't a diss of Kobe. It's really not. It doesn't mean he isn't tough, or that he isn't completely awesome. It just means he has a human body like the rest of us, one vulnerable to harm and illness. With a broken finger and a stomach virus, not only was he not his usual self tonight. He wasn't even at sufficient strength to help the Lakers, who lost to the Utah Jazz by the score of 94-102.

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