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Inactives
Lakers: DJ MBenga, Sun Yue
Kings: Kevin Martin, Kenny Thomas
Hey folks - just to reiterate what I mentioned in the pregame, the Kings have combined for 221 points in their first two games against the Lakers. In the locker room before the game, more than a few Lakers seemed intent on making sure that the Kings aren’t once again scoring at will. So we’ll see about that.
In other news, some of the Sacramento press has centered on John Salmon’s doing a good job on both ends of the court with Kobe Bryant, so I asked Salmons about it courtside before the game. He wasn’t biting. Instead, Salmons told me that “Regardless of who it is, I just like to compete. I just play hard.” Uh, OK. So you don’t get up any more for the game’s best player, John? Not at all? “If you don’t, he’s going to kill you. You gotta. But I just go out there and try to play basketball.” That’s a little better, but not really.
All right. So Luke’s back in the starting lineup:
Lakers: Fish, Kobe, Walton, Pau and Bynum
Kings: Beno Udrih, John Salmons, Francisco Garcia, Spencer Hawes and Brad Miller
First Quarter
Kobe’s in Mamba mode tonight. Attackin’. Bryant came out and stuck a jumper within the first few seconds of the game, took another on the next possession, and then pulled off his patented show-you-just-enough-of-the-ball-to-make-you-reach-and-drawing-a-foul move (I believe that’s the technical term). The result was four early points, plus a Walton jumper and L.A. jumped out to a 6-0 lead.
Fisher continued his hot shooting by canning a triple to make it 9-2, and Walton could have made it 12 had he made the wide-open baseline three Kobe’s offensive board got him. He missed … and he’s going to be upset about it. After Wednesday’s win against Phoenix, Walton said he was happy with his game with the exception of his missed threes, because his stroke has felt great in practice.
As Sacramento struggled to get good looks thanks in part to L.A.’s defense, scoring just two points in the first four minutes, one (me) got the idea that the Kings might just settle for beating the Lakers once in a week. They didn’t have anywhere near the same energy they showed at Arco. It was like going from Mark Madsen to final-season-in-Toronto Vince Carter.
Lamar Odom checked in at the 5:23 mark and immediately scored off a nice cut and a nicer pass from Walton, giving the Lakers a 17-12 lead. We should note that Odom is sick today, catching the cold that’s gone around the squad, most recently to Farmar and Walton. Funny how that works with guys who sweat all over each other every day and breath the same airplane air, huh?
After a quarter of play and a 33-27 lead, there were two good signs in particular for the Lakers:
A) Kobe Bryant looked terrific, hitting 4-of-6 shots (including a twisting, explosive dunk) and 2-of-3 free throws for 10 points, grabbing three rebounds and dishing to Farmar for a three.
B) The help defense was much better to start the game that it had been in the last several. Before the game, Chris Mihm told me that L.A.’s defense has simply needed quicker and sharper rotations, and that was the focus of practice this week after Tuesday’s loss in Sacramento. The Kings got a few garbage points at the end of the quarter to get to their 27 points on 10-of-22 shooting, but the shots they made weren’t of the wide-open variety L.A. had been giving up of late.
L.A. did miss four free throws and turn the ball over five times, or the lead would surely have been double-digits, because the Lakers dominated the quarter. The crowd, late arriving due to some brutal traffic on the 110, had to suffer through what turned out to be almost a 10-minute delay at the end of the quarter after Ariza contributed an and-1 to counter five-straight Bobby Brown points. They ultimately decided that 0.8 seconds, not 6.1, remained on the clock (huh?), but all that extra time forced the Laker Girls to burn a few hundred calories each dancing about. Someone near me reported that one of the girls spun approximately 94 times. So keep that in mind.
Second Quarter
Before the game, I asked Lamar Odom why he switched from calf warmers (you know those black foam-looking things) to knee pads. He explained that the calf things were starting to bug him a little bit, and since he has a bit of knee soreness here and there (like every NBA player), the pads are on there to protect him from and knee-to-knee contact. Plus, it makes him feel a little bit like Magic out there, he offered. On the court, Odom offered four points, two blocks and two boards in his eight minutes of burn with 9:11 left in the second, which left the Lakers up 37-31.
Foul trouble alert: Bynum picked up his third and fourth fouls very early in the second quarter, meaning we’ll get a heavy dose of Gasol and Odom, and maybe even some Josh Powell or Chris Mihm later in the quarter.
Offense dead alert: The first six minutes of the second were rather listless from both squads. The Lakers managed just six points and the Kings eight as the field goal percentages dropped steadily, with the score standing at 39-35 L.A. The Lakers were missing some easy, open looks.
Guess what got the offense going? Luke Walton. As soon as Walton entered, the ball started moving around almost immediately, resulting first in a wide-open three-pointer from Kobe (swish, assist to Luke) and second a 12-foot jumper from Gasol, also wide open after an extra pass. Moments later, however, Walton committed two fouls in seven seconds that led to a Salmons bucket that capped Sacramento’s 7-0 run to tie the game at 44.
Josh Powell always seems to do good things on the floor, regardless of how many minutes he’s afforded. Checking in for Odom to close the quarter, Powell did just that (good things … stay with me). First came a shove out of bounds of Garcia while going for a loose ball (no foul, Lakers kept it); second an offensive board after a miss and the resulting foul shots; third a hard foul near midcourt that exhibited his nice little mean streak; fourth another offensive board and putback; and finally a hanging jumper in the lane that put him at the foul line again. The only bad news there was that Powell missed 4-of-5 foul shots (odd, as he’s a good free throw shooter), but his effort set a nice tone for the Lakers and got a good response from the crowd.
The unfortunate thing for the purple and gold was that Sacramento managed a quick 4-0 run in the final 26 seconds to tie the score heading into halftime.
Third Quarter
OK, I know 52-52 isn’t quite what Lakers fans expected at the half, but I actually thought the home team looked good for the majority of the half. The defense was much better than in recent games to my eye, and L.A. just missed a lot of easy shots. Gasol missed some easy looks, Bynum couldn’t buy anything inside (1-of-6), Walton missed a few gimmes and the squad missed nine foul shots. Quiet those alarm bells, OK? Halftime for me consisted not of wondering what went wrong to make the score tied (which was obvious), but whatever happened to Crystal Pepsi? I asked because a media member was getting soda water out of the Pepsi socket in the media room pop machine, and I briefly got excited hoping for Crystal Pepsi. Sadly, I think it’s dead.
Since the Lakers players are always eager to justify my speculative comments, they quickly went on an 11-0 run to take a 69-58 lead, capped by a Gasol and-1 at the rim and an Odom jumper from the elbow.
Bryant dropped a three-pointer from 27-feet with Udrih directly in his face to give L.A. its biggest lead to that point, but it was the team’s defense that held the Kings to one point in a stretch from the 9:22 to 4:20 mark of the quarter. Furthermore, the only point came on a technical free throw attained by Bryant for arguing a no-call at the other end. That stretch is precisely what blew this game open, and exactly for what the Lakers have been looking. Obviously. So, the Kings managed to score 14 points in the final nine minutes of the quarter, including two on a ticky-tack foul in the final seconds by Farmar, to make the score 84-72 heading into the fourth quarter.
The Kings were 0-for-4 from three in the third, and 6-of-16 (37.5) from the field. L.A. forced seven turnovers and scored 11 resulting points en route to 32 for the quarter. Bryant had 11 (25 total on 9-of-17), Gasol seven plus 10 combined points off the bench.
Fourth Quarter
Remember two weeks or so ago when Ariza got into it a little bit with Vujacic when Sasha took a shot too quickly and didn’t look to move the ball? That now seems far in the past after two minutes of mutual love to start the fourth. First Vujacic drew a defender to him on the fast break when he could have taken the shot himself, instead dropping it off to Ariza for a dunk. A minute later, Ariza made the extra pass to Vujacic for an open three, which the Slovenian canned. “They go together like lamb and tuna fish,” said Ty, referencing “Big Daddy.” “What, do you prefer spaghetti and meatball?” … I just lost my dad with that reference. In unrelated news, you know when you smash a McDonalds 10-piece and fries in five minutes even though you know your stomach will start hurting 3.4 seconds after the final fry goes through your throat? Me too.
The Kings, impressively, didn’t lay over and die despite getting pounded in the third and the start of the fourth. Instead, they put together a little 5-0 run behind an Udrih three and Mikki Moore putback dunk (which he predictably celebrated way too intensely) to make it 98-91 Lakers with 5:09 remaining. L.A. may have let up just a bit defensively, and Jackson called a timeout to make sure that didn’t continue, bringing the starting lineup back in the game. Bynum promptly committed his sixth foul* in flagrant style by tackling Hawes with 4:24 remaining, giving the Kings two shots and the ball, and bringing Odom back onto the floor to close the game, which proved smart at first as Odom promptly nailed a three-pointer.
*Last time Bynum fouled out of a game was Dec. 30 against the Celtics.
After Odom’s three, however, Hawes responded with two jumpers, the second from three, to cut the lead all the way down to three, at least until Fisher answered with a jumper at the other end. The Kings have simply been a tough beat for the Lakers this year. They’re just … plucky. Yeah, that’s a good word.
Fisher responded with a pull-up jumper, which preceded two missed Udrih free throws and a tough shot from Bryant off glass to put L.A. back up seven with 2:00 remaining. After a missed Kings’ shot, Kobe got all fierce: Coming off a Gasol pick at the top of the key, Bryant rose up in the air from just a few steps inside the free throw line, hung for another few seconds, got hit in the face, hung for another half second, and finally reached peak altitude as he reached both hands behind his head and plastered the rock through the rim. Bryant added a free throw to put the Lakers up 108-98, and effectively bury the pluckies.
Much to the crowd’s chagrin, Sacramento got a worthless three in the final seconds to reach the 100-point mark again, meaning no free tacos for a Lakers’ fanbase who’s now 19-3.
Final Score: Lakers 112, Kings 103
