Seventh heaven

The Lakers won their seventh in a row to start the season, building a big lead and then holding off the New Orleans Hornets down the stretch to win, 93-86. Later, guard Derek Fisher insisted the Lakers can improve their game.

Fisher's postgame comments:
"I do think it's a positive thing that we've gotten off to a good start. The season is extremely long and sometimes there's no way to avoid a bad loss or a poor effort. So it's important to rack up wins early in the season. At the same time, I don't think we're playing perfect or great basketball over 48 minutes."

Kobe Bryant agreed, saying:
"Whether we win by 30 or whatever we won by (Wednesday), we always try to find areas to improve. It's no different. You look it at as a learning experience. It's just like the other games, this is no different."

Coach Phil Jackson had this to say about the Lakers' defense against the Hornets:
"I thought our defense played well tonight. We didn't convert all of the fastbreak opportunities that we had. That came back and haunted us a little bit toward the latter part of the game. They figured it out in the second half and came out and played pretty well."

Here are a few facts and figures:
The Lakers held the Hornets to 30 points on 27.9 percent shooting in the first half. ...
Fisher and Bryant had 20 points apiece, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol had 14 apiece and Trevor Ariza had 10 points. ... Chris Paul had 30 points for New Orleans. ... The last time the Lakers started a season 7-0, they won the NBA title in 2001-02. They were last 8-0 in 1987-88 (another title season). Their best start was 11-0 in 1997-98.