March 9th: Lakers win, but Big Easy cheers.

[Phil]

Lakers win, but Big Easy cheers

By Ross Siler Staff Writer


Los Angeles Lakers Smush Parker (1) goes for a dunk in front of New Orleans Hornets' Chris Paul during an NBA basketball game in New Orleans. This is the Hornets first game back in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They have been playing their home games in Oklahoma City, but are playing three games in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
• 03/08: Lakers vs. Hornets
NEW ORLEANS - For one night, the people of this hurricane-battered city could forget about the trash that hasn't been picked up, the power that hasn't been turned on and the friends and family members still scattered across the country.

There was a game to be played Wednesday at New Orleans Arena - the city's first since Hurricane Katrina - as the Hornets returned home to play the Lakers, with an announced sellout crowd on the edge of its seat with each possession down the stretch.

In the end, the Lakers spoiled the homecoming with a 113-107 victory as Kobe Bryant hit three sensational jumpers, each more improbable than the one before it, in the last 2<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2 minutes and guard Smush Parker came up with a big steal with 46.9 seconds left.

But it was a night bigger than basketball as the fans who stayed to the end stood and cheered at the final buzzer of a loss. The pregame invocation (a Hornets tradition) mentioned the "long Katrina winter" and looking forward to a "spring of hope."

"It's a testament to the character of this city," Bryant said, "and to the people that reside here, about their resiliency, their ability to bounce back, and to move on from a very difficult ... seemingly impossible situation."

[Phil]

NBA Roundup: Kobe romps in Big Easy
Bryant spoils homecoming for Hornets

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS -- They came in talking about Katrina. They left talking about Kobe.

Kobe Bryant scored 18 of his 40 points in the fourth quarter as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the New Orleans Hornets 113-107 Wednesday night, disappointing the standing-room crowd that put aside its Hurricane Katrina problems for a night of cheering on its team.

"It was great, just the wrong ending," said Tom David, who took the night off from working on his parents' flooded house to attend the game. "A little touch of normalcy."

It was the first professional sporting event in New Orleans since the Aug. 29 storm destroyed much of the city, scattered residents across the country and sent the Hornets to Oklahoma City for the season.

"It was a big game for us. It was a big game for both teams," Bryant said. "We were fortunate to come away with a win tonight."

[Phil]

Odom hearing voices

Broderick Turner

12:23 AM PST on Thursday, March 9, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - Everyone is whispering in Lamar Odom's ear, telling him to shoot the basketball more.

The latest words came from Lakers assistant coach Brian Shaw, who suggested Odom take between 14 and 16 shots per game.

Odom is averaging 11 shots per game. He said 31 shots are the most he has ever taken and that was when he played for the Miami Heat during the 2003-04 season.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson is not expecting Odom to shoot 31 times, but Jackson does want Odom to put the ball up more.

"That's just my coach telling me to go," Odom said. "... He's told me to make my own plays, as far as breaking the offense."

Jackson twice repeated what he wanted from Odom.

"We're encouraging him to take a more active, proactive role in this," Jackson said. "Not only active, but proactive."

Odom took 14 shots against the Hornets on Wednesday, making six and scoring 18 points to go along with 17 rebounds and six assists.

"He played a great game," Jackson said.

[Phil]

Hornets stung by Bryant
From correspondents in New York
09mar06

KOBE Bryant poured in 40 points as Los Angeles Lakers eased to a 113-107 win over New Orleans today, spoiling the Hornets' homecoming to the hurricane-battered Big Easy.

A standing-room only crowd of more than 17,000 fans welcomed the Hornets back to the rebuilt New Orleans Arena, cheering the team throughout the first professional sporting event staged in New Orleans since Huurricane Katrina devastated the city last August.

Since being forced from their home, the Hornets, like many of the city's residents, have found shelter elsewhere, taking up temporary residence in Oklahoma City.

With basketball back in the Big Easy, Bryant put on a show, scoring 18 of his points in the decisive fourth quarter while going 14 of 16 from the free-throw line.

Lamar Odom contributed 18 points and 17 rebounds to the Los Angeles cause while Smush Parker netted 16 points and made seven assists as the Lakers notched their third win in four games.

[Phil]

Lakers, NBA return to devastated New Orleans
By Ross Siler, Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS - For one night, the people of this hurricane-battered city could forget about the trash that hasn't been picked up, the power that hasn't been turned on and the friends and family members still scattered across the country.

There was a game to be played Wednesday at New Orleans Arena - the city's first since Hurricane Katrina - as the Hornets returned home to face the Lakers, with an announced sellout crowd living and dying a little with each possession down the stretch.

In the end, the Lakers spoiled the homecoming with a 113-107 victory as Kobe Bryant hit three sensational jumpers, each more improbable than the one before it, in the last 2 minutes and guard Smush Parker came up with a big steal with 46.9 seconds left.

But it was a night bigger than basketball as the fans who stayed to the end stood and cheered at the final buzzer of a loss. The pre-game invocation (a Hornets tradition) mentioned the "long Katrina winter" and looking forward to a "spring of hope."

"It's a testament to the character of this city," Bryant said, "and to the people that reside here, about their resiliency, their ability to bounce back, and to move on from a very difficult situation, seemingly impossible situation."

[Phil]

New Orleans welcomes Hornets

Web Posted: 03/09/2006 12:00 AM CST

Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS — For the first time in nearly six months, Rhett Charles walked into New Orleans Arena on Wednesday night and took a deep breath.

The air smelled like basketball, a far cry from the last time Charles entered the portals of an arena that on Wednesday night, for the first time this NBA season, the New Orleans Hornets could call their home court.

Six months ago, the police officer said, it smelled of death.

A 16-year member of the New Orleans Police force, Charles was on duty at the Louisiana Superdome last August in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. From inside the football stadium, Charles was ordered to the nearby Arena in quest of badly needed ice.

"I didn't know they had been treating sick and elderly people there, some of them dying," Charles said. "I walked in and I just wasn't prepared when I opened that door."

Charles was on duty of a much happier nature Wednesday, providing security for the Hornets and the Lakers in the arena's back halls.

"I love it that the Hornets are back," the police officer said. "Love it. I'm a die-hard fan. To have them back, even for one game, the city needs that."

[Phil]

Win has meaning for Lakers
Kobe scores 40 in Lakers' win
By Ross Siler, Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS - As much as Wednesday night's game was a homecoming for the New Orleans Hornets, playing in the first professional sports event in the city since Hurricane Katrina, it had a significance all its own to the Lakers.

There was simply too much at stake for the Lakers to get lost in the celebration at New Orleans Arena, as right as it felt, especially with seventh place in the Western Conference standings at stake.

If there was any doubt, assistant coach Brian Shaw spelled it out on the locker room white board before the game - "They're in 7th, we're in 8th. Make Ground Tonite!" - and the Lakers took care of things with a 113-107 victory.

They got 40 points from a relentless Kobe Bryant, who went into the fourth quarter having made just 5 of 22 shots, but found his jumper down the stretch of a tie game against the 5-foot-11 Speedy Claxton.

Bryant drilled three long jumpers in the final 2 minutes - bringing full circle a night in which one fan waved a "Hurricane Kobe" sign during player introductions - and guard Smush Parker picked Chris Paul's dribble from behind with 46.9 seconds left.

[Phil]

Odom's Role May Still Be Evolving
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
March 9, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — If Phil Jackson has his way, chrysalis will happen a little more rapidly for Lamar Odom.

A week ago, the Laker coach compared Odom's chances of becoming a scorer to the slow, delicate process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. He has since told Odom to shoot more often, reversing his season-long mantra of letting the game come naturally to the Laker forward.

"He just said, even if it's not going to be in the offense, make my own play," Odom said. "He's giving me the green light. I'm going to do that. It's my coach telling me just to go, don't worry about nothing."

Odom, averaging 11.4 shots before Wednesday, didn't seem overly worried against the Hornets.

He took 14 shots, made six and scored 18 points in the Lakers' 113-107 victory.

Assistant coach Brian Shaw has told Odom to shoot at least 14 times a game, Odom said he would aim for 14 to 16, and Jackson has signed off on either.

"We're encouraging him to take an active, proactive role in this," Jackson said. "In games we played that have been exceptional games, where we look like a quality team, a challenging team — the Sacramento game, obviously the Detroit game — Lamar's played an important role in figuring out those games. The times that we've struggled and not come up to the mark measured, he hasn't had the same kind of success.

"I think some of it has to do with not taking on some of the responsibility about scoring. In others, it's allowing the game to kind of come to him too much."

Jackson's words signified a sharp turnaround from earlier in the season.

[Phil]

League Presents Promise That Return Is More Than Symbolic
March 9, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — The NBA came back to the city with the slogan laissez les bon temps rouler, where few good times had rolled recently, to be greeted like liberators.

Wednesday night's game sold out. Rookie Chris Paul, making his New Orleans debut, put on a show with 22 points and 10 assists. The Hornets came from 11 points down to go up by six in the fourth quarter….

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, I could really feel it," said Paul. "Starting with the starting lineup, they were really behind us. They booed Kobe [Bryant]. Man, it really hurts to know we couldn't bring them this win….

"[But] It's still basketball."

Actually, it was Kobeball. Bryant dropped 18 points' worth of his routine-for-him-impossible-for-anyone-else shots on the Hornets' heads in a 113-107 Laker win, but it still qualified as a great night. After what local fans have been through, a close loss in basketball hardly qualifies as heartbreak.

The league showed up here in force Wednesday, with Commissioner David Stern heading a legion of his legends with emphasis on those with local ties, such as Bob Pettit and Willis Reed.

Stern and several players hammered nails with Habitat for Humanity. The commissioner met with civic leaders, was assured the area is coming back — the words "$100 billion worth of investment" kept coming up — and bristled when asked about Hornet Coach Byron Scott's recent suggestion the area can't support the team.

"I would say to Byron, let me make that decision and he should focus more on basketball," said Stern as he and his players pounded nails in a floor. "And if you see him, tell him that. We're going to be back….

"Yes, there will an NBA team here."

[Phil]

Laker Win Is Moving on Emotional Night
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
March 9, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — The Lakers finally lost their tenuous hold on eighth place in the Western Conference, eagerly, elatedly, and without regret.

The playoff landscape doesn't look quite as tricky from their new perch, virtually tied for seventh in the West with New Orleans/Oklahoma City by defeating the Hornets, 113-107, in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 17,744 Wednesday at New Orleans Arena.

Kobe Bryant made a woeful shooting night disappear with 13 points in the final six minutes, Smush Parker employed a hammer in the visitors' locker room after picking up some last-minute vindication of his own, and Lamar Odom showed what he could do with his new green-light status from Coach Phil Jackson.

It was Jackson who put "Make Up Ground" on the board in the locker room, and so the Lakers did.

More preoccupied recently with hanging on to eighth by fending off Sacramento and Utah, the Lakers jumped at the chance to actually move up a notch. The Hornets, playing their first game in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina hit in August, were pulled down to a 31-29 record, the standings equivalent of the Lakers' 32-30.

"Hopefully we can just keep moving up with some 'W's," Odom said.

[Phil]

Bryant big guy in the Big Easy
He scores 40 points and the Lakers spoil the Hornets' return to New Orleans.

By KEVIN DING
The Orange County Register

NEW ORLEANS – For a few quick steps and with a mildly bashful smile Wednesday, Kobe Bryant broke out his airplane-simulation farewell that celebrates significant Lakers road victories.

Bryant didn't rejoice too long. This first professional sporting event since Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans six months ago meant too much to the locals to do that. But Bryant earned his wings again in the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets' homecoming - scoring 18 of his 40 points in the fourth quarter of a 113-107 Lakers victory.

Even though this was hailed as a big step for a rebuilding community - NBA commissioner David Stern called the event "a symbol of normalcy" - the game was more about the Lakers' growth.

[Phil]

Bryant keeps eye on prize

Lakers 113, Hornets 107: He blocks out the hoopla to score 18 of his 40 points in the 4th quarter.

12:24 AM PST on Thursday, March 9, 2006

By BRODERICK TURNER / The Press-Enterprise

NEW ORLEANS - For Kobe Bryant, this game was about business.
AP photo
The Lakers' Smush Parker goes for a dunk in front of the Hornets' Chris Paul.

That the Hornets were playing the first professional sporting event in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and that so many celebrities came to support the rebuilding effort, was all well and good to Bryant.

Bryant felt New Orleans' pain, but he had to look past all that and lead the Lakers, which he did by scoring 18 of his 40 points in the fourth quarter of LA's 113-107 victory over New Orleans before a sellout crowd of 17,744 at the New Orleans Arena on Wednesday night.

The game was important to the Lakers, who used 18 points, 17 rebounds and six assists from Lamar Odom and 16 points, seven assists and five steals from Smush Parker to improve to 32-30. That leaves the Lakers in a virtual tie with the Hornets (31-29) for the seventh Western Conference playoff spot.

Bryant was zeroed in, saying nothing to his teammates before the game, just concentrating on getting a victory.

[Phil]

BUZZ IS BACK
But Bryant scores 40 as Lakers spoil homecoming party
Thursday, March 09, 2006
By John Reid
Staff writer

Six months ago, 2 feet of water stood in New Orleans Arena's locker rooms, and the front entrance of the facility was used as a shelter for evacuees with special medical needs after Hurricane Katrina had devastated the city.

On Wednesday night, it was a festive place where New Orleans-area residents came to put aside their Hurricane Katrina experiences, enjoy themselves and show that the Big Easy can support professional basketball like any other NBA city.

A standing-room-only sellout crowd of 17,744 came to see the Hornets play the Los Angeles Lakers in the first major professional sporting event in the city since Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29.

They were loud and energetic, but the Hornets (31-29) were unable to use it as an ally in the fourth quarter, as they lost 113-107. It was the Hornets' fourth consecutive loss and sixth in eight games since the All-Star break.

"It was a great homecoming," said guard Speedy Claxton. "We only wish we could have given them a win. I guess they've been following us all year and seen how successful we've been, and they really showed up for us tonight."

It had the feel of a playoff game and was similar to the Hornets' inaugural game at the Arena in 2002. That was the night the NBA returned for the first time in 23 years after the Jazz left for Utah.