Mike D’Antoni believes the pairing of Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol will hinge on spacing.

"Being able to get the rhythm down of not everybody just running to the post," D'Antoni said. "Being able to keep their spacing and understand, when Kobe has the ball, one gets to the baseline and one gets to the mid-post. I think we can do that."

Gasol is expected to make his return to the Lakers starting lineup on Friday.

D'Antoni insists Howard and Gasol previously struggled to co-exist because they were not healthy, and since Steve Nash also wasn't healthy, they were exposed on defense and underutilized on offense.

"A lot of decisions were made when Steve wasn't on the floor and Dwight wasn't 100 percent and Pau wasn't playing real well or 100 percent," D'Antoni said. "So you think, 'That's not working, this isn't working,' but when they're all 100 percent it can work."