Trackers of leaguewide popularity are acutely aware of a different notion: The Lakers are among the NBA’s best. The Thunder had seven dunks in the first half, three of them alley-oops from Westbrook to Steven Adams. Cleveland is next at 18,979. Lakers: Jordan Clarkson returned from a two-game absence with an ankle damage. Golden State is the most popular.
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James Harden added 18 points with 11 assists, and Ariza scored 17 for the Rockets.
Fans went wild. There was an in-game standing ovation.
Bryant and the semi-retired Ray Allen are the only two cagers left from the very talented 1996 batch.
Guard Lou Williams led the Lakers with 20 points.
Bryant’s view on it is that you just have to chalk that one up to the game and take a loss. We didn’t come to compete and they just played harder than we did. He has struggled mightily in the first 15 games of this season with mostly young teammates on a rebuilding roster, making a career-worst 32 percent of his shots and dealing with pain and exhaustion every day.
The Lakers announced about 90 minutes before the game that Bryant wouldn’t play due to the sore shoulder. For the season he is averaging 16.7 points on dreary 33.9 percent shooting.
Try as they might, the Lakers aren’t going to make the playoffs in the loaded Western Conference with or without Bryant playing 30 minutes a night. There was a standing ovation.
In Houston, Dwight Howard had 22 points and 14 rebounds and the Rockets built a huge lead early.
The Los Angeles Clippers are enduring a particularly brutal section of the schedule and reached a rough patch of late. “Kobe would obviously like to be going out in a different way”. “I don’t know where it came from, but it was there”. Lakers coach Byron Scott only reported that Bryant woke up on Saturday morning feeling soreness.
“Then he’ll start to think about everything”, Scott said. I’m anxious. I want to see how the young man reacts. My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. “He wasn’t bland, he wasn’t neutral”, Corb said.
“I like took off and ran across the baseline, tried to get back before the ref saw me and, uh, I caught Denzel’s attention and the ref caught me and I don’t know what we did”, Russell said, according to ESPN. G Anthony Brown started in place of Bryant. I obviously don’t have a say in that type of stuff. Scott added of his players, “They didn’t play well at all and really just got embarrassed by the way we played tonight”.
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In other National Basketball Association games Saturday night, John Wall had 27 points and 12 assists, Garrett Temple scored a career-high 21 points and the Washington Wizards beat the Charlotte Hornets 109-101.
