Archive for the ‘Postgame’ Category
ESPN: The final seconds ticked down and Michael Jordan slowly rose from his seat. He waited until the final buzzer and then briefly clapped.
Jordan showed little emotion after the Charlotte Bobcats won their first game in three tries since he agreed to buy the team. And why not? Beating the Los Angeles Lakers has become routine for this franchise.
Really.
No matter the personnel, coach or even the impending owner, the Bobcats own the defending champions. The combination of Stephen Jackson (21 points) and Gerald Wallace (17 points, 10 rebounds) overcame 26 points from Kobe Bryant on Friday night in Charlotte’s 98-83 victory.
“I really don’t know,” Wallace replied when asked to explain Charlotte’s seven wins in the past nine meetings. “You can say that about them and you can say that about Cleveland.”
Indeed, the Bobcats are 3-1 against the NBA-best Cavaliers this season. Oh, and they’ve lost twice to the six-win New Jersey Nets. It’s why they’re still a game behind Miami for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“Those top teams bring out the best and they bring out big crowds,” Wallace said. “Come to a New Jersey game and we probably have 500 people.”
Continue reading ‘Lakers shoot 36 percent, commit 20 turnovers in loss to Bobcats’
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Yahoo! Sports: The Lakers and Nuggets won’t know for another few months who’s got the other’s number. For now, though, give Denver the edge.
Chauncey Billups scored a career-high 39 points, including nine 3-pointers, and the Nuggets won 126-113 Friday night, ending the Lakers’ eight-game home winning streak and improving to 2-0 against them.
Billups was 12 of 20 from the floor, including 9 of 13 from 3-point range, and made 6 of 8 free throws to go with eight assists for the Nuggets, who played without Carmelo Anthony for the seventh straight game because of a sprained left ankle.
“You’ve always got to be confident. There’s a lot of people that can say it, but until you can do it, you’ve got to get that confidence from the right place,” Billups said. “They’re the world champs. But we feel that we can compete with them.”
Billups scored 21 points in the third quarter alone, the most against the Lakers in one period since Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers had 23 in a game in February 1966. Billups’ nine 3-pointers were the second-most ever against the Lakers.
“He was shooting considerably beyond the line,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “I’m just glad that didn’t happen in a playoff game.”
Kobe Bryant scored 33 points on his sprained left ankle, but the first-place Lakers proved no match for the Western Conference’s No. 2 team, the one they beat in last year’s conference finals en route to their 15th NBA championship.
“I could still be effective and play,” Bryant said tersely. “Obviously, I’m not as explosive as I was but I can still command double teams, things like that.”
Continue reading ‘Lakers are defenseless in ugly loss to Nuggets’
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ESPN: With his superstar hobbling and the Charlotte Bobcats refusing to go away, Phil Jackson never got terribly comfortable while becoming the winningest coach in Los Angeles Lakers history.
Andrew Bynum had 17 points and 14 rebounds, and Lamar Odom scored 19 points while making several big plays down the stretch, making sure Jackson added another superlative to his matchless coaching career in Los Angeles’ 99-97 victory over the Bobcats on Wednesday night.
Jackson, also the winningest coach in Chicago Bulls history, passed Pat Riley with his 534th win with the Lakers. The Hall of Famer won 545 games and six titles in nine seasons with Michael Jordan and Co. before winning four more rings in his first nine seasons with the Lakers, rising to fifth on the NBA’s career coaching victories list when he passed Charlotte’s Larry Brown earlier this season.
“It’s been a really good run,” Jackson said. “Having this opportunity to coach this team is always special. The fact that we’ve had some great teams, great players, is always a credit to them. It’s not really an individual record in my mind.”
Jackson is the winningest playoff coach in NBA history, and the only coach to win more than 70 percent of his regular-season games. Against the pesky Bobcats, he managed to coax a late-game win out of his Lakers even with just a season-low five points from Kobe Bryant.
Continue reading ‘Phil Jackson reaches milestone as Lakers hang on’
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ESPN: Kobe Bryant scored 44 points, passing Jerry West as the Los Angeles Lakers’ career scorer, but it wasn’t enough as the Memphis Grizzlies got 22 points and 17 rebounds from Zach Randolph to defeat the Lakers 95-93 on Monday night.
Rudy Gay led Memphis with 25 points, and his 3-pointer with 29.5 seconds left helped Memphis end its two-game losing streak.
Ron Artest’s 3-point attempt from the right side bounced high off the rim as the horn sounded, snapping the Lakers’ four-game winning streak.
Bryant passed West’s mark on a breakaway dunk in the third quarter. Bryant made 16 of 28 shots, including 4 of 7 outside the arc. Artest added 18 points, while Pau Gasol had 10 points.
Lester Hudson had 13 points for Memphis, and Marc Gasol finished with 11 points and 13 rebounds for Memphis.
While Bryant got the franchise record for scoring, the loss prevented Lakers coach Phil Jackson from passing Pat Riley as the winningest coach in regular-season games for Los Angeles. The two are tied at 533.
The game was tied at 88, when Memphis ran the shot clock to near the end before Randolph made a 22-footer for a 90-88 lead with 1:08 left. His two free throws extended the lead to 92-88. Bryant scored on a drive before Gay’s 3-pointer with 29.5 seconds left gave Memphis a 95-90 lead, and the Grizzlies held on.
Continue reading ‘Lakers lose on last-minute shot to Memphis’
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ESPN: A.I. vs. Kobe delivered the throwback duel fans paid to see. Just like in the 2001 NBA finals, Bryant’s Lakers came out on top.
Bryant roused the 20,000 fans who came to jeer him as much as they did to root on the 76ers, scoring 24 points to lead Los Angeles to a 99-91 win over Philadelphia on Friday night.
Bryant always packs the Wachovia Center when the he makes his yearly visit to his old stomping grounds. He rarely disappoints in putting on a show for the fans who boo his every touch, yet line the court to snap countless photos.
While Bryant is still in his prime, Allen Iverson is in a steady decline. Lakers coach Phil Jackson said the All-Star showdown misses some of the buzz of years past when both could make the argument they were tops at their position.
Don’t tell Iverson. He crossed-over and crashed his way toward a season-high 23 points.
Iverson and Bryant are responsible for Philadelphia’s only two sellouts this season. Iverson’s first game back in Philadelphia drew 20,664, and Bryant helped draw 20,809 on Friday.
Continue reading ‘Lakers beat 76ers in rematch of 2001 NBA Finals’
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ESPN: Andrew Bynum played as though he was making a final statement ahead of Thursday’s All-Star reserves announcement.
The center scored a season-high 27 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to help the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers 118-96 on Wednesday night.
Bynum finished second in the Western Conference voting at center with more than 980,000 votes. The fans voted Phoenix’s Amare Stoudemire in as the starter.
Lakers forward Pau Gasol said Bynum should be on the team. The coaches choose the reserves.
“There are a few guys on this team, Andrew is one of them, that has All-Star caliber potential,” Gasol said. “He would get my vote, absolutely. Right now, Andrew is definitely one of the top centers in the league.”
Bynum scored 22 points in the first half. Kobe Bryant took over in the second half and finished with a game-high 29 points to go with nine rebounds and seven assists.
Bynum scored 22 points in the first half. Kobe Bryant took over in the second half and finished with a game-high 29 points to go with nine rebounds and seven assists.
Continue reading ‘Kobe, Bynum set pace as Lakers win in Indiana’
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L.A. Times: This was not how the Lakers wanted to start an eight-game, 13-day trip, and it was a game the Lakers didn’t want to lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But the Lakers failed to get it done in the clutch when the game hung in the balance and now have lost the two-game season series to Cleveland.
In the process, the Lakers (32-10) and Cavaliers (34-11) are basically tied for the best record in the NBA.
If the Lakers and Cavaliers finish the season tied with the best record and meet in the NBA Finals, Cleveland would have home-court advantage.
The Cavaliers won this game behind the play of LeBron James, who had 12 of his game-high 37 points in the fourth quarter. James also had nine assists and five rebounds.
Kobe Bryant had 31 points, but just four in the fourth quarter. Bryant was 12-for-31 shooting from the field.
Having seen enough, having seen James score consecutive baskets, including a three-pointer, Lakers Coach Phil Jackson called a timeout with 5:23 left and put Bryant, Derek Fisher and Pau Gasol back into the game.
The Cavaliers had opened a three-point lead that was stretched to 85-80 after James scored again. When James scored again, the Cavaliers had an 87-80 lead.
Continue reading ‘Cavaliers sweep season series over Lakers with victory’
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ESPN: Shannon Brown scored a career-high 22 points, Pau Gasol had 17 points and 10 rebounds, and the Los Angeles Lakers scored the first 15 points of the fourth quarter Monday night for a 98-92 victory over the Orlando Magic in the first rematch of last season’s NBA finals.
Kobe Bryant scored just 11 points on 4-of-19 shooting, but his teammates carried the Lakers to their 18th win in 19 home games in a remarkable fourth-quarter rally led almost entirely by reserves.
Brown scored nine points in the fourth, while Lamar Odom and Jordan Farmar combined for 13 straight points while Los Angeles roared away in the opening minutes of the final period.
Dwight Howard had 24 points and 12 rebounds for the Magic, who wrapped up a four-game road trip with their third straight loss and seventh in nine games. The way Orlando lost was even more disconcerting, with a wildly up-and-down performance that bottomed out in the fourth, when the Magic didn’t manage a field goal for nearly six minutes.
Farmar scored 11 points and Odom had nine points and 16 rebounds for the Lakers, who reached the halfway point of their regular-season schedule with another win over the Magic, who fell to Los Angeles in five games in the finals last summer.
Continue reading ‘Lakers pull away from Magic in Finals rematch’
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L.A. Times: This time, the Lakers played with a purpose against the Clippers on Friday night at Staples Center in their home game.
This time, the Lakers played harder than the Clippers.
The 40-point victory was the largest margin of the season for the Lakers.
With four Lakers starters scoring in double figures and with the return of Pau Gasol, the Lakers took control of this game in the third quarter and got a measure of revenge after the Clippers had beaten them by 11 points last week when the teams last played each other.
Gasol, who had been out for six games with a strained left hamstring, had 20 points and six rebounds in 31 minutes. He was four-for-10 shooting from the field and 12 of 12 from the free-throw line.
Kobe Bryant, who played the last two games with back spasms, had 30 points on 10-for-20 shooting,.
Andrew Bynum had 20 points on eight-for-13 shooting.
Continue reading ‘Lakers rout the Clippers by 40 points in Gasol’s return’
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ESPN: Kobe Bryant had a season-high 44 points and 11 assists while making all 16 of his free throws, and the Lakers survived Golden State’s 55-percent shooting for a 124-118 victory over the Warriors on Tuesday night.
Pau Gasol had 27 points and 12 rebounds for the defending NBA champions, who relied even more heavily than usual on Bryant to avoid their third loss in four games over the past five days.
Bryant came through with 17 points in the fourth quarter, clinching his seventh 40-point game of the season on two free throws with 4:04 left. He has 103 40-point games in his career, third-most in NBA history.
Corey Maggette scored 25 points and Monta Ellis added 22 for the Warriors, who beat Phoenix and Boston in the previous three days during the best stretch of another rough start to a season.
Golden State shot superbly and ran its uptempo offense well, but had nobody who could guard Bryant in the Warriors’ seventh straight loss to the Lakers. The Warriors haven’t won three straight games yet this season.
The Lakers still have the NBA’s best record (25-6) despite two 15-point losses in the previous three days, including their 102-87 Christmas flop against Cleveland. They also played their third straight game without starting forward Ron Artest, who gave himself a concussion and a deep cut on his left elbow when he tripped and fell at his home on Christmas.
Continue reading ‘Kobe’s 44 points carry Lakers past Warriors’
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