Posts tagged Lakers
Lakers Take Care of Clips to Extend Streak
03.26.11

Kobe Bryant drives hard to basket against Clippers.
It wasn’t a blowout, but the Lakers led wire-to-wire as they held off the Clippers 112-104 Friday night at Staples Center, to push their post-All-Star game record to 14-1.
Kobe Bryant had a game-high 37 points, coming off his season-high 42 points against Phoenix on Tuesday. He hit 11-21 shots from the field, and went to the line 17 times, connecting on 14 of them. He also had six and assists and four rebounds, and scored 12 points in the fourth quarter.
Pau Gasol, who scored 26 points and had eight rebounds, raised $26,000 for Japan relief as he donated $1,000 for every point he scored in the game. Ron Artest had 15 points, five rebounds, three blocks, three steals, and played superb defense all night on the Clippers’ leading-scorer Eric Gordon, holding him to seven points on 3-14 from the field.
The Lakers jumped out fast on the Clips, taking a 30-14 lead late the in the first quarter. The Clippers rallied in the second quarter and closed to 37-35, but never did get any closer in the first half. The champs led at the break 57-48.
In the second half, the Lakers continued to maintain a healthy lead, pulling ahead by 12 on several occasions, only to see their hallway neighbors continue to battle back. After three the Lakers only led 85-80.
The Clippers kept it close in the fourth, closing the gap to two on several possessions. With Lakers leading by four with 40 seconds left, Artest made a great defensive play in the open court, taking the ball away from rookie sensation Blake Griffin who was heading in for a dunk. The game was sealed when Andrew Bynum tipped in a missed Derek Fisher free throw with under 20 seconds left.
Tempers flared again for the two teams, as Fisher and Clipper center got into a yelling match when Fisher threw out his elbow after a hard screen set on him by Kaman, in the final seconds. Kaman appeared to tell Fisher he’d meet him in the parking lot after the game, as he was being ejected with two technical fouls. Fisher was also assessed a technical.
Both teams shot the ball well from the floor. The Lakers hit 50.0% (39-78) and the Clippers also hit half of their shots (42-84). Neither team shot the three ball well, the Lakers went 6-18 (33.3%) and the Clips 5-17 (29.4%) One of the big differences in the game was the Lakers going to the line 39 times, hitting 28, while the Clippers went 15-18 from the charity stripe. The Lakers won the rebound battle, 41-34, and committed two less turnovers at 16-14.
For the Clippers, Mo Williams had a season-high 30 points and six assists, hitting 11-16 from the floor and 4-7 from the three-point line. Griffin had a fairly quiet 22 points and only six rebounds, but did have a few highlight dunks, which as become the norm for him nightly. Randy Foye had 12 off the bench, and Al-Farouq Aminu scored 11 points off the bench as well.
The Lakers moved their record to 52-20 as they won their sixth straight, and now lead the Dallas Mavericks by 1.5 games for second place in the Western Conference standings. They also only trail the San Antonio Spurs by 5.0 games with 10 left to play. They won their eighth straight game at Staples, and took the season series against the Clippers 3-1.
Los Angeles tries to continue their undefeated homestand against the New Orleans Hornets on Sunday. The Hornets lost their leading-scorer David West to a torn ACL this week, so they will rely much more on All-Star point guard Chris Paul to pick up the scoring slack, as they battle for playoff position in the West. The Hornets are currently in seventh place in the conference.
Lakers Escape Past Rockets in OT
02.02.11

Heroes against Houston, Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom.
The Lakers needed an extra five minutes to get it done, but they were able to escape Tuesday night with a 114-106 win over the fiesty Houston Rockets, to avoid a disastrous three-game losing streak at home.
Kobe Bryant had 32 points, 11 assists, and six rebounds on 13-25 from the floor, hitting a floater in the lane with 38 seconds left in overtime to put the Lakers up 110-106, as they held on for the eight-point win that was every bit a grind.
Lamar Odom had his second career 20/20 game, scoring 20 points and grabbing 20 rebounds in a starting role, as the Lakers played without Andrew Bynum who missed the game with a bruised knee. Pau Gasol rebounded from two terrible games to score 26 points and 16 rebounds, including the tie-breaking layup in overtime that put the world champs ahead for good.
The injury-depleted Rockets kept the game close all night. After the Lakers built a 43-31 lead early in the second quarter, Houston quickly fought back and trailed only 54-48 at halftime, and the Lakers never regained that strong momentum again until late in overtime.
In the second half, the Rockets came out fired up, and at one point took a 68-63 lead midway through the third quarter. The Lakers rallied back and held a six-point lead with just over two minutes left in the game. But Houston refused to go away, and tied the game with 5.5 seconds left on a wide-open layup by Luis Scola. Odom then missed an off-balance three-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.
In the extra session, the Rockets took a 104-100 lead on a jumper by Scola with 2:48 left, before the Lakers went on a 10-2 run, capped off by Bryant’s basket with 38 ticks left. That was enough to get the Lakers the much-needed victory after two very difficult losses to Sacramento and Boston at home.
Kevin Martin led the Rockets with 30 points, and oddly enough was the only Rocket to get to the foul line, hitting 10-11. Luis Scola had 24 points and 15 rebounds, and Aaron Brooks scored 16 off the bench, although he hit just 2-10 from beyond the arc.
The Lakers, who had just 10 assists on Sunday, had 22 against the Rockets. Bryant, who had zero dimes against Boston, had seven alone in the first quarter, as he looked to get his teammates involved early. And this time, they made the shots.
For the game the Lakers shot 48.4% (44-91) from the field, and outrebounded the Rockets 54-44. Gasol and Odom combined for 36 of the 54 boards. The Lakers also had 16 offensive rebounds. But they allowed way too many second-chance points, letting Houston grab 16 offensive rebounds themselves. The second-chance baskets and easy layups made the game a lot closer than it should have been.
The Rockets shot just 43.0% (43-100) from the floor, and took a whopping 38 three-pointers, hitting just 10 (26.3%). In fact Houston’s point guards, Kyle Lowry and Brooks, combined to go a miserable 2-16 from beyond the arc, and just 10-30 from the field overall.
The Lakers’ next game is Thursday night at home against the team with the best record in the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs, at an amazing 40-8. The Spurs did lose to Portland 99-86 on Tuesday night however. This will be the second meeting of the year between the two teams. The Spurs dominated the Lakers in the second half in San Antonio en route to a 97-82 win on December 28th.
It is unknown whether Bynum will be back for Thursday’s game, but coach Phil Jackson didn’t sound optimistic, especially with the center’s history of knee problems. Bynum did play in the first game, scoring 10 points off the bench.
Lakers Defense-Less in Dallas
01.19.11

Lamar Odom goes up for two against Mavericks.
The Lakers certainly did enough offensively to win on Wednesday, unfortunately they played one of their worst defensive games of the season, losing to the the Dallas Mavericks 109-100 at the American Airlines Center.
It’s not often a team shoots 54.3% from the floor in this day and age in the NBA and loses. But when the other team shoots 55.0%, then it makes sense. And that’s what happened against Dallas, as a good offensive game was wasted by the Lakers due to their inability to stop the Mavericks at all in the second half.
As has been the case in recent games, the Lakers led early, and led by double-figures at certain points as well. But they just can’t seem to play consistent defense for 48 minutes, allowing teams back into games, and quickly. Dallas erased an 11-point first half deficit, and a 9-point third quarter deficit, storming back for a relatively easy win.
In fact at one point in the in the fourth quarter, the Mavericks led 97-81, before the Lakers went on a 10-2 run, highlighted by a 4-point and a 3-point play by Lamar Odom. But they could get no closer, as the Mavs just had too big of a cushion and the Lakers were just unable to get stops at the defensive end. The Mavericks outscored the Lakers 27-8 to finish the third quarter, which was the difference in the game.
Pau Gasol led the Lakers with 23 points on 11-16 from the floor, though he had just five rebounds. Kobe Bryant had 21 points and 10 assists, and Lamar Odom continues to play great basketball, scoring 20 points and grabbing 10 boards off the bench. He was the one real bright spot in the loss.
The biggest issue for the Lakers was allowing a Dallas team that had lost six in a row and was really struggling offensively, to hit 12-26 (46.2%) from the three-point line. And many of those shots were completely uncontested, as the Lakers were out of position on defense on so many occasions, it was hard to keep count. Both teams had 35 rebounds.
Jason Kidd, who went scoreless against Detroit in Dallas’ last game, scored a season-high 21 points on 5-8 from beyond the arc, to go along with 10 assists. Shawn Marion got to the basket at will, looking like the high-flying act he was in his younger days in Phoenix, as he scored 22 points off the bench.
Jason Terry, who was one for his last 18 from the three-point line hit 4-6 against the Lakers, for 22 points off the bench as well. Dirk Nowitski, coming back from a sprained knee, struggled with just 14 points on 5-15 shooting, but it hardly mattered on this night, as Dallas snapped their losing streak.
The Lakers will try to move on from that forgettable second half in Dallas to face Carmelo Anthony and the Denver Nuggets on Friday at the Pepsi Center. The Nuggets beat the Lakers 118-112 back on November 11th, a game Los Angeles led by 10 in the fourth quarter in Denver, before collapsing down the stretch as Anthony went for 32 points.
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