Lakers 98, Wolves 86
Maybe this is as good as it gets right now.
Maybe this is the best the Lakers can do.
Maybe winning ugly games against bad teams is their method of
operation.
That certainly seemed to be the case again Sunday night, when the
Lakers rumbled, bumbled and stumbled their way past the Minnesota
Timberwolves, 98-86, in front of a sellout crowd of 18,997 at Staples
Center.
"When you're striving to be perfect like we are, and not just
playing to make the postseason but playing to be a great team, after games
like this you just feel you could have played better," Lakers sixth man
Lamar Odom said. "A win is a win. It's not like we lost, but we could have
played better."
Perhaps the Lakers simply can't do any better against the dregs of
the league. After all, the Timberwolves represented the Lakers' eighth
consecutive opponent without a winning record. The Lakers improved to 7-1 in
that stretch and are 20-3 for the season.
Only the Boston Celtics (22-2) have a better record than the Lakers.
It also seems only the Celtics can capture the Lakers' attention at the
moment. The Celtics are, after all, the team that defeated them in the NBA
Finals last June.
So, forgive the Lakers if they are secretly counting the days until
they play host to Gang Green on Christmas Day.
Clearly, the Lakers are not dazzled by the likes of the lowly
Timberwolves, who fell to 4-19 after losing their ninth consecutive game.
How else to explain the Lakers' struggles?
Or more to the point, how else to explain the Lakers' run of
lackluster play? After all, that's really been the bottom line over the last
few weeks.
The Lakers are winning at a pace that puts them on track for a 70-win
season. It's just that they haven't looked good while defeating vastly
inferior opponents.
Credit the Timberwolves for making the Lakers look like a
middle-of-the-pack team instead of the Western Conference leaders. They
chased the Lakers around the court, but couldn't quite catch them when it
mattered most.
"It doesn't matter one way or the other (how the Lakers look)," said
Kobe Bryant, who scored 26 points on 9-for-24 shooting and added five
assists and three rebounds.
Pau Gasol added 18 points, 11 rebounds and six assists for the Lakers,
Andrew Bynum had 14 points and nine rebounds and Trevor Ariza had 14 points
in a reserve role. Odom had six points and 10 rebounds.
Al Jefferson led Minnesota with 20 points and 13 rebounds, and Craig
Smith added 18 points and eight rebounds. Rookie Kevin Love, a former UCLA
All-American, scored only two points but had 10 rebounds.
The Lakers held the Timberwolves to 36.1 percent shooting, including
31.8 percent (7-for-22) in the fourth quarter, but that wasn't good enough
for Odom.
"I always feel like we could play better defense," he said. "It's
like we turn it on and off, on and off. I don't really want to worry about
other teams. I just want to worry about us. I think we should be at the
point where we play our best all the time."
The teams were deadlocked at 57-all, but the Lakers went on a 10-2 run late
in the third quarter to take control of the game. Minnesota never threatened
down the stretch, but the Lakers could not build a lead larger than 14
points in the fourth quarter.
The first half was played in fits and starts, a process that
troubled Lakers coach Phil Jackson. The Lakers led by only 42-37 at halftime
despite pressuring the Timberwolves into 13 turnovers, which they turned
into 11 points.
"The pace was slow and we looked a little lethargic," Jackson said.
"Our offense in the first half was pretty limited. We were in the low 40s,
and we have been scoring in the mid 50s or low 60s lately."
Asked why the Lakers' offense struggled so much in the first half,
Jackson smiled and said he told the players it was due to what he called
"the Christmas blues."
"They've had parties the last two days, and there's another one
(today)," he said.
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