Lakers 116, Nuggets 99
January 21st, 2008, 10:16 pm · 1 Comment · posted by KEVIN DING, OCREGISTER.COM
LOS ANGELES – In recent years Kobe Bryant has gotten an inordinate amount of experience cracking help, zone and straight double-team defenses to score on his own anyway. That’s the hard way to do things.
What Bryant did so masterfully Monday night is far easier, though still so tricky that most NBA stars can’t do it consistently. Bryant attacked those traps and took them right to the tipping point of being out of control — before passing to open teammates who buried open shots.
In Game 3 since the Lakers lost emerging center Andrew Bynum to his knee injury, Bryant and his teammates still moved to the same season-long soundtrack of sweet team basketball and beat the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center.
Derek Fisher had 28 points, one off his career high, in just 31 minutes. Jordan Farmar, playing at times in tandem with Fisher with Bryant at small forward because of all the frontcourt injuries, added 19 points. Bryant had 17 points and a season-high 11 assists.
ARIZA OUT
The Lakers announced forward Trevor Ariza, who has been so good since coming in trade for Maurice Evans and Brian Cook that he earned starting consideration over Luke Walton, will miss about eight weeks with a fractured foot.
WHO’S THE “DJ”?
To bolster the injury-depleted center position with Bynum and Chris Mihm, the Lakers signed DJ Mbenga to a 10-day contract – using the 15th roster spot they saved for just this purpose.
DID YOU SEE THAT?
Lamar Odom penetrated and passed to Sasha Vujacic in third quarter, but Vujacic missed a 3-point shot and didn’t hustle back on defense. Odom, who wound up getting back in transition to foul the trailing Allen Iverson at the rim, yelled at Vujacic for not being there.
NEXT
Lakers at San Antonio, 6 p.m. Wednesday, KCAL/9, ESPN, KLAC/570
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
Nice job Kwame. As much as it hurt to be booed by Laker fans something good came out of it. Your team got behind you and you responded with the best effort you have put forth this season. All the fans were asking was that you give it your best, whatever that is at the present time. With Andrew down we were not going to accept anything less. We can see when you are giving it your all and when your not.
The game last night was a beautiful thing. An entire team working together for a W. Looking for the open man and making the pass. The defense could have been better and if Carmelo had not gone down the outcome would have been harder to achieve, but I think the way the Lakers were playing they would have come out on top. The new Laker Mantra, “whatever it takes”.