Road gets bumpier through this stretch

The Lakers are still lacking a sizable chunk of text on their resumes, an incomplete portion under their “experience” header as they head toward the midpoint of the season.

Quality road victories.

They are 7-9 overall on the road -- not that awful, really, but not that great, either -- and their only road games against top-four Western Conference teams were losses in Dallas and Utah.

With three games left until the official dividing line of their regular season, they will get a chance to show some influence with prickly back-to-back games today in San Antonio and Thursday in Dallas. Then they play New Orleans at an Oklahoma City arena that was loud enough last season to resemble a frenetic student section at a college game.

The Lakers knew this would happen back in August, when the schedules were released, and 16 of their first 20 games were at Staples Center, including a designated road game against the Clippers.

Now it’s give-back time.

“It’s the beginning of our road part of the season,” Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said. “This is where we have to step in and start to play like some experienced players.”

They have done well with a 19-year-old at center and Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown missing a combined 24 games, but they are tied for the league lead with 22 home games.

That disappears quickly with 11 of their next 14 on the road, including a mammoth eight-game trip starting at the end of the month, the longest for the Lakers since an eight-game trip in December 1989.

They have already defeated San Antonio and Dallas at Staples Center, but whether they can do it in Texas is entirely different.

“We know that San Antonio is going to be jacked about the fact we beat them on our home court,” Jackson said. “Dallas, obviously, we won a game that was down the stretch against them just a week and a half ago. These are important factors in a young team that is facing a month in which there’s some road games. We end up on the road again at the end of the month. That’s going to be a tough road trip for two weeks.”

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Brian Cook was the latest role player to step to the forefront, making four of six three-point attempts and scoring 25 points Monday against Miami. He also had 10 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots.

“He’s a huge problem,” Miami interim Coach Ron Rothstein said. “Probably for a big guy, he’s the best catch-and-shoot guy around. He’s got a real quick release, and we talked about it.”

Talked about it, yes. Did something about it, no.

“We’ve got a lot of dangerous people on this team,” forward Luke Walton said. “Cook got hot so we kept feeding Cook the ball, and when we play like this, we’re very tough.”

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Jackson was definitely pleased with the share-the-wealth effort against Miami, crediting players not named Kobe Bryant for taking the initiative, “rather than just going to Kobe all the time and working him to death out there on the floor.”

Bryant had a relatively quiet 25 points as he struggled with a sore groin muscle that he aggravated during the game.

“We executed pretty well and just moved the ball, and that’s what we have to do,” Bryant said afterward.

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TONIGHT

at San Antonio, 6, Ch. 9, ESPN

Site -- AT&T; Center.

Radio -- 570; 1330.

Records -- Lakers 25-13; Spurs 27-12.

Record vs. Spurs -- 1-0.

Update -- The Lakers beat the Spurs last month, 106-99, after a blistering third quarter in which they scored 37 points and forced a staggering nine turnovers against one of the league’s most experienced teams. Bryant returned from a one-game absence (sprained ankle) to score 34 points on 13-for-25 shooting.

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