By J.A. Adande
ESPN.com
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LOS ANGELES -- It turned out that Tuesday's Lakers-Spurs game -- even with the Lakers unable to catch the Spurs atop the Western Conference and the Spurs uninterested in playing their trio of stars -- still could prove to be the turning point of the NBA season. It all depends on the outcome of an MRI exam to be performed Wednesday on the right knee Andrew Bynum hyperextended during the game.

Bynum will not play in Wednesday's season finale at Sacramento.

On his way out of the arena after the game, Bynum told reporters that the injury was "painful when it happened, but it's not that bad right now."

"He could be out a couple games," Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "Could be a bone bruise involved. But his reassurance was, 'I'm going to be OK.'"

That's all Lakerland has to go on for the moment. And it's not as if there's plenty of other reason for optimism. Nothing in the Lakers' play of late has resembled a team that should even be discussed in championship terms, including this 102-93 victory over the San Antonio semi-Spurs that snapped a five-game Lakers losing streak. They're clinging to the belief that the playoffs will inspire some better performances, something along the lines of the 17-1 stretch they ran off after the All-Star break, a run of stellar basketball that hinged on the dominant defense and rebounding of Bynum.

Which is why the thought of them trying to go through these playoffs without him -- something that entered everyone's mind at Staples Center when they watched him slowly walk off the court -- alters the entire view of the playoffs. Take away Bynum and you take away the advantage the Lakers have over everyone else.

With just more than eight minutes remaining in the second quarter Bynum was running back on defense when he stepped on DeJuan Blair's foot and his right knee buckled. Yes, that knee. The one with the big black brace on it. The one he had surgically repaired last summer.

Bynum sat on the ground, his knees up by his chest as if he were back in kindergarten. He stayed there while Kobe Bryant shot a technical free throw at the other end of the court. Finally Bynum got up, checked out of the game and went straight to the locker room.

The Lakers also were without Matt Barnes, who missed the game with a sore right knee and won't travel to Sacramento. Steve Blake has chicken pox and is out indefinitely. The Lakers still need another victory to secure the No. 2 seed in the West and home-court advantage in the second round of the playoffs.

The Lakers hadn't been able to beat anyone lately even with their lineup intact. And they struggled against the Spurs with San Antonio's starting lineup sitting on the bench all night. Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili wore street clothes, and Tony Parker wore Spurs sweats over a uniform that he never got sweaty. Antonio McDyess sat out as well.

San Antonio started a lineup of Gary Neal and George Hill at guard, Tiago Splitter and Richard Jefferson at forward and Blair at center. And they didn't play those "starters" nearly as much as the Lakers played their starters. So much of the game featured Lakers starters against the Spurs' third team, and still the Spurs stayed in it until the final minutes, keeping the outcome of this game in doubt much longer than it should have been, forcing Jackson to use his key players far more than he intended with a back-to-back game looming.

That's why it almost felt like a victory for the Spurs.

This was going to be about them, but they once again found a way to get overshadowed. They're the No. 1 seed in a very competitive Western Conference, yet you never hear them mentioned as championship contenders. People are projecting a Lakers-Thunder conference finals as though San Antonio has no say in the matter.

"I think we just get in the way of the conversation at times," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "I kind of get a kick out of it. It's always about somebody else. For whatever reason, we just don't engender that much attention. I think it's the way we carry ourselves. It's the way we like it."

Popovich has coached four championship teams, so he knows what they look like. I asked him if this team had the look of a champion.

"I think we can play with anybody," he said. "The question for us is if we can stay healthy and last the whole playoff series against these young, healthy, athletic, deep teams.

"You look at the Portlands and the Oklahoma Citys and people who haven't been in the finals of the Western Conference yet and they're on their way to doing it, and they're a bear. They're a bear for us, for the Lakers, for the Celtics, for anybody. We've got a lot of really good young teams out there and they're all breaking through."

That doesn't exactly make you want to fly to Vegas and take advantage of an undervalued Spurs team, does it? Sure, Popovich would be the last one to play his own saxophone. But I get the sense he really doesn't see his team as the favorite. If he didn't, he wouldn't have gimmicked up the offense and had his team taking all those 3-point shots. Not if he thought his team could just line up and beat people.

But he threw out the B version of his team and almost beat the Lakers on Tuesday night. The Lakers are the ones who have the greater injury concerns right now.

The once-anticipated showdown for Western supremacy didn't materialize. What did emerge were more doubts about the Lakers, even in the wake of their first victory in 11 days.

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