Lakers 113, Clippers 95
February 23rd, 2008, 10:00 pm · Post a Comment · posted by KEVIN DING, OCREGISTER.COM
LOS ANGELES – The Lakers partied Saturday night the way they plan to for a while — perhaps as longstanding Pacific Division and Western Conference leaders. They won easily over the Clippers at Staples Center in the Lakers’ first game in this stretch of eight of nine against teams slotted to miss the playoffs.
Pau Gasol (23 points, six assists), Lamar Odom (20 points, 10 rebounds) and Kobe Bryant (17 points, seven assists) continued to look like a new option as one of the NBA’s best threesomes. The Clippers were missing center Chris Kaman (back).
Vladimir Radmanovic left for good after just 8:24 of action with a strained right calf, opening the door for Luke Walton to pick up some of his old minutes at small forward.
WALTON’S MOVE
Chris Mihm and Kwame Brown have a tendency to miss shots or lose the ball and do a little skip step while slapping their hands together in chagrin. Walton has started to do this thing where he licks his fingertips after similarly mishandled plays.
SASHA TIME
Walton played better Saturday night, and Sasha Vujacic’s continued emergence will help if Radmanovic’s injury lingers. After Walton, Bryant moving from guard to small forward is Phil Jackson’s next option – with Vujacic (17 points) playing Bryant’s normal position.
QUOTABLE
Speaking about some reasons why Odom isn’t Dennis Rodman’s match as a rebounder, Jackson said: “Lamar doesn’t get a lot of offensive rebounds – unless they’re his own misses.”
NEXT
Lakers at Seattle, 6 p.m. Sunday, KCAL/9, KLAC/570
