That was fairly huge. A 6-0 road trip. Including the loss of Andrew Bynum for maybe the rest of the season. A victory in Boston that snapped the Celtics’ 12-game winning streak, and a victory in Cleveland that was the Cavaliers’ first home defeat in 24 games.

If this were June, the Lakers would have taken dramatic steps toward winning an NBA championship.

Instead, it’s making statements about what they might do, what they could do. Useful, in setting a tone, in planting seeds of doubt in the minds of opponents. But not concrete the way road victories in the playoffs are.

Still and all … this could be the franchise’s high point, in relation to the rest of the league, since the 2002 championship. The Lakers just won on the home courts of the other conference’s two best teams, and the other conference’s third-best team is without its point guard … and now it almost makes us wonder if San Antonio might be a bigger hurdle, in the Western Conference playoffs, than Whoever Shows Up from the East in the NBA Finals.

Some notable aspects of the Sunday matinee between the Lakers and Cavaliers:

–Lamar Odom was huge, again. The guy who was reduced to a sixth-man role until Bynum’s injury, scored 28 and took 17 rebounds, both season highs. He dominated the third quarter, when the Lakers worked their way back from a 12-point deficit and took the lead.

Which brings us back to a question that has been asked almost since Odom entered the league, as the Clippers’ top pick, in 1999: “How come this guy isn’t a superstar?” Odom may be the most enigmatic player in the league. He is 6-10, can get to the rim, has a decent shot, is tricky to defend because he is left-handed, handles the ball as well as anyone 6-10 or taller in the history of the game … That is, he has all the tools to be a major force, not just a No. 3 option, but he never has seemed to embrace that role — even though the Lakers practically begged him to for three-plus seasons, until they gave up and got Pau Gasol a year ago to be their No. 2 option.

Odom never has been a go-to guy for more than a few games at a stretch throughout his career. But many of those games have been so impressive it makes you wonder what is going on with him, the rest of the time. Does his attention wander? Is there some sort of killer-instinct gene he is missing?

Is anyone in the NBA a bigger puzzle? Does anyone really understand his game and how he approaches it? I think not.

–The Lakers have figured out the way to play the Cavaliers, after LeBron’s team pretty much handled them for the previous three seasons: Pack the lane against James and make the rest of the Cavaliers beat them. Which isn’t something LBJ’s supporting cast seems quite up to doing against quality teams.  James scored 16 points but he was 5-for-20 from the field. Which would seem to indicate he took a bunch of low-percentage shots (actually, yes, he did) and had 12 assists — which means he was giving it up a lot because he couldn’t get a decent look at the basket.

If Odom is as aggressive as he was today, he and Pau Gasol and even Trevor Ariza give the Lakers a significant advantage around the basket — over Cleveland’s interior of Zydrunas Ilgauskas (who actually had a nice game), Ben Wallace and Anderson Varejao (who didn’t). Add Bynum to the equation, and the Lakers have a huge edge in the paint against Cleveland.

–The Lakers no longer have to play nearly perfect games to win against other elite teams, which had seemed to be the case since Shaquille O’Neal left. In Boston, they missed 12 of 29 free throws yet still won a one-point game. In Cleveland, Kobe Bryant was obviously ill. (I wouldn’t have wanted to body-up against him, on defense, nor would I have been hugging him in congratulations, but maybe I’m a hypochondriac.) He played only 35 minutes, and was full speed for about 12 of those. He had only six of his 19 points after halftime, when he got an IV for dehydration … and sat out nearly half of the fourth quarter, returning to make just one basket — that ridiculous fall-away-high-archer thing over LeBron with 2:48 left that seemed to break the Cavs’ spirit — as well as blunt a comeback that had cut the Lakers’ lead to 93-89.

So, yes, both games, the Lakers left a sense that they could have been significantly better than they were — and they won, anyway.

–The Lakers’ bench actually contributes something other than minutes. In any given game, they are going to get some key baskets from the posse of Farmar-Vujacic-Ariza. And some strong defense, as well. All those guys still have lots of up side, and they are showing it.

–I love Phil Jackson. What he has done with this team is masterful.  From the Xs and Os to the delicate dance of substitutions to the manipulation of players’ psyches — such as making Odom the sixth man in a contract year and seeming to finally wring a bit more out of Mr. Enigma. Phil has never been better than this season.

For the Lakers, it also is meaningful that they won the other four games on the 10-day trip though awful weather. At Minnesota. At Memphis in the game where Bynum got hurt. At New York, when Kobe scored 61. At Toronto, when they turned it on in the fourth quarter before traveling to Boston for a game the next night.

They now are in a position to do some great things. If they pay attention the rest of the way, they have a great shot at home-court advantage over anyone (not just the West), and if they get Bynum back, they will be the deepest team in the league, as well.

They still are more than two months away from the playoffs, which is too bad … but not crushing. Because the Lakers are establishing benchmarks around the league. They know they can win at Boston. They know they can win at Cleveland. And so does everyone else.