CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Lakers are one victory away from the NBA’s best continuous trip of at least nine games since the end of neutral-site games. They got past Charlotte on Tuesday night, even though it wasn’t the Lakers’ sharpest outing and can finish this epic trip at 7-2 by beating Minnesota on Wednesday night.
Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant got off to torrid shooting starts to produce the lead that the Lakers carried all game. Gasol hit his first six shots from the field (12 points) and had four assists in that time. Meanwhile, Bryant hit his first five shots (16 points) and had three assists.
Gasol finished with 26 points on 9-of-11 shooting. Bryant had a game-high 31 points and was sharp at crunchtime, unlike in the Lakers’ last loss Wednesday in Atlanta.
SONGBIRD ODOM
Lamar Odom was feeling “festive” after the victory in Miami on Sunday and could be heard singing in the shower. He took a pregame shower Monday and could be heard singing even more.
“WHO WANTS KOBE?”
Without Gerald Wallace (foot), the Bobcats moved Jason Richardson from shooting guard to small forward and asked Jeff McInnis to guard Bryant.
QUOTABLE
After a game in which Bryant had five assists, Lamar Odom had five and Gasol had six, Bryant said: “Everybody’s a playmaker.”
NEXT
Lakers at Minnesota, 5 p.m. Wednesday, KCAL/9, KLAC/570
Hey KD, make sure that Kobe practices for the three point shootout using those racks and a timer (if he’s still planning on participating). It can be pretty awkward if you’re not used to grabbing the ball low and to the side off of the racks.
They were saying three headed monster when Bynum gets back huh, that whole team will be deadly. In my opion the lakers only need time to gel better,to get there timing in sinc amd to sinergize with each other. It seems to me that we play to hard in the first half of the season and we come down with injuries maybe it woud be better to coast a little bit and remain the forh seed to try and remain healthy and congeel as a team than to play hard right off the batt and sustain injuries early on. After the all star brake is when we should step on the gas………well thats my opion be it right or wrong.
Picking up Pau Gasol was a fanominal acuisition for what we traded for to get him. This deal has put the Lakers over the top.The Lakers shoul go undefeted in the Western Conference. I was upset when the Lakers lost about eight or nine games that they clearly should have won, but now that we have another SUPERSTAR on the team “LOOKOUT” WORD HERE WE COME!