Lakers News and Rumors: Metta World Peace Has Torn Meniscus, Phil Jackson Joins Twitter, Kobe Bryant Unfazed By Mike D'Antoni's Rant

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First Posted: Mar 27, 2013 09:48 PM EDT

One thing can be said about the L.A. Lakers-they may be a lot of things, but never boring.

Several days after Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni blasted his team following a Monday loss to Golden State, Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant responded, stating that now wasn't the time to get emotional as the Lakers find themselves in the thick of a playoff race. Meanwhile, famous ex-Lakers coach Phil Jackson joined the Twitter universe and the Lakers received some bad news about one of their key players, Metta World Peace.

Phil Jackson Gains Many Followers After Creating Twitter Account Wednesday

He has 11 NBA rings as a coach and he's coached some of the greatest players in history. So, what does Phil Jackson need in his life? Apparently, a Twitter account.

Following suit with Lakers star Bryant, who opened his own account in January, Jackson joined the social media world Wednesday when he opened his own Twitter account for the first time.

His first message to the online social media world?

"11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs," he tweeted. (No, that's not a typo, that's exactly how he wrote it.)

Under his handle of @PhilJackson11, where he cites himself as merely being a coach and author-a rather modest self-assessment for the man who coached Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippin, Dennis Rodman, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant to multiple NBA titles and earned the reputation of being one of the NBA's all-time great coaching geniuses-Jackson has already amassed thousands of followers.

Two hours after his tweet, more than 62,000 people began following Jackson. Lakers executive vice president Jeanie Buss, who is dating Jackson, tweeted that the beloved ex-Lakers coach had joined Twitter, as USA Today reports.

Kobe Bryant Urges Calm After D'Antoni's Criticizing Speech

Keep Calm and Carry On-that is the simple message from Bryant after D'Antoni lashed out at his team's effort following a 109-103 loss to the Golden State Warriors Monday.

The loss extends the Lakers' losing streak to three games-which they can ill-afford as they scrap and claw with Utah for the eight and final playoff spot.

Still, Bryant, a five-time world champion, said it wasn't the time to get overexcited.

"I don't think it's time to get emotional," Bryant said Monday, according to ESPN. "We got to just maintain our poise and just think about, [from an execution standpoint], what are we going to do. We got to look at what teams are doing against us in terms of spreading us out and rolling a big and now we collapse and now we're late to the shooters."

"This is about the third game in a row where that's happened to us," he said, "so we got to figure out defensively what we're going to do. Not really get overly emotional, but we just got to look at what's going on and make adjustments."

D'Antoni raised some eyebrows when he blasted the Lakers Monday, calling their vow to win a championship in every huddle "laughable."

"Championship? You got to be kidding me. Nobody understands the importance of every possession offensively and defensively. Every time they got to come out with some kind of determination to be a good basketball team, and [until] then, we're just, we're fooling ourselves. Right now, that's what we're doing. We're just making a 'sham-mockery' out of it," he said.

However, Bryant was unfazed, indicating that this wasn't a time to let emotion run wild.

""It's really not an emotional thing," Bryant said. "It's just X's and O's. If you look at the game, it's just strategy and adjustments. They put us in positions where we have to pick and choose, and we weren't able to counter that. It's really that simple."

Metta World Peace Out Six Weeks Due to Torn Meniscus

And in other news, the hits just keep on coming for the Lakers as they've lost another high-profile player to injury, possibly for the rest of the season.

World Peace, a key starter for the Lakers, will be out six weeks after being diagnosed with a torn meniscus in his left knee, the team confirmed in a statement.

ESPN reported that World Peace initially tweeted a status report Tuesday--which he deleted later--after he hurt his knee in the first half of Monday's 109-103 loss to Golden State.

"Sorry bout the injury," World Peace tweeted. "First ever knee injury. Recovery time hopefully is a week and a half."

Obviously, the injury turned out worse than expected, with World Peace now requiring surgery to repair the damage.

Having just gotten Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol back from injury, this latest loss marks yet another frustrating setback to the Lakers, who have been injured all season, several key players such as Bryant, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash and now World Peace having missed games due to injury. Bryant (ankle) and Gasol (knees) both recently returned after being sidelined with injuries.

"It's been a trying year for a lot of reasons and not just injuries, which everybody has to go through," D'Antoni said prior to the news of how severe World Peace's injury was. "We just can't seem to get any traction. But, besides that, nobody is feeling sorry for us and we got plenty [of talent remaining] to win anyway so let's just do what we're supposed to do and go out and play as hard as we can and see what happens."

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