March 16th: Lakers hold on for a win over the Timberwolves. George may return soon.

 
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Phil
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:34 am    Post subject: March 16th: Lakers hold on for a win over the Timberwolves. George may return soon.

This Time the Lakers Hold Firm
L.A. avoids another bad home loss as Bryant finishes strong and scores 25 points with key late baskets in a 92-89 victory over Minnesota.
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
March 16, 2006

It wasn't easy, of course, the Lakers being what they are in home games this season.

Struggling against another non-playoff-caliber team, they leafed through the pages of their usual Staples Center script and unveiled a surprise ending, a 92-89 victory Wednesday over the Minnesota Timberwolves.


It almost felt unusual, especially after an embarrassing home loss Sunday to Seattle, but the Lakers will take it without wondering too long how close they came to losing.

Kobe Bryant again came back from a hushed first half to finish relatively strong, although the shots still aren't quite falling and the free-throw attempts aren't coming as they usually do. After only six first-half points, he finished with 25.

Bryant had one free-throw attempt, far too few for Coach Phil Jackson, who later suggested the NBA was cracking down on his free-throw possibilities.

Lamar Odom was Bryant's bookend, firing for 16 points in the first half and finishing with 20, the combination of the two good enough to extend the Laker lead to 1 1/2 games over New Orleans/Oklahoma City for eighth place in the Western Conference.
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Phil
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:36 am    Post subject:

Lakers finally get some breaks - and a victory
Lakers get victory
Ross Siler, Staff Writer


Los Angeles Laker Smush Parker is upended for the foul as Minnesota Timberwolves Rasha McCants looks on.
Photo Gallery: 3/15: Lakers vs. Timberwolves (Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photo)
There wasn't even time to think Wednesday night for the Lakers. Not for Luke Walton as he took the biggest shot of his season. Not for Kobe Bryant as the ball that was knocked from his hands in the last seconds came back to him.

The Lakers had to have a victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, and they did just enough to take a 92-89 decision at Staples Center, winning the kind of close game that has gone against them so many times this season.

"I think we know we're capable of winning tough ballgames," Walton said, "but we just have to do it all the time now."

It could have gone the other way, and almost did late, as Rashad McCants and Marcus Banks turned back-to-back steals into dunks for the Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett threw down a reverse dunk as part of a three-point play.

But the Lakers answered back, the way they had to with a three-game game road trip starting Friday, and Walton and Bryant came through when it was needed most.

Walton was struggling so much a couple of weeks ago that he didn't get off the bench in the Lakers' victory over Orlando on Feb. 28. Yet Walton has found his shooting stroke and turned around his season in the time since.

The Lakers put the ball in Bryant's hands, the Timberwolves committed a second defender to him, and the superstar guard found Walton in the corner for a 3-pointer with 1:06 left.

Walton came into Wednesday having connected on just 9 of 27 3-pointers this season. But the third-year forward took the shot with confidence and drilled it to put the Lakers up 88-87.

"It was great for me to see him hit that," Bryant said. "It was a big, big shot for us. He stepped up and he didn't even think about it."
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:38 am    Post subject:

Odom has stepped up as sidekick

By KEVIN DING
The Orange County Register

LOS ANGELES – Back in the era of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, the Lakers were a two-headed monster because both superstars insisted on claiming individual greatness to go with the team success. When Bryant wasn't at his best, O'Neal would be, and vice-versa.

For these Lakers to be anything close to comparably successful, Bryant has to have that kind of help, especially now that Coach Phil Jackson said of Bryant: "He's tired."

Lamar Odom might be tired, too, but he's quietly improving when it matters most. Odom keyed the Lakers' 92-89 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night at Staples Center. He had 20 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists, scoring nine consecutive Lakers points in their second-quarter surge while Bryant rested.

"I'm ready to go home and go to sleep," Odom said afterward.

With the Lakers not having obtained a player such as Ron Artest, whose Sacramento team beat the Lakers on Tuesday night - and not yet having gotten someone like Kevin Garnett - whom the Lakers beat Wednesday night - it's up to Odom to be Bryant's full partner.
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Phil
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:40 am    Post subject:


Kobe carries burden in stretch


Lakers 92, Wolves 89: He scores the final two baskets, lifting LA into a tie for 7th in the West.

01:06 AM PST on Thursday, March 16, 2006

By BRODERICK TURNER / The Press-Enterprise

LOS ANGELES - A tired and weary Lakers team that barely is holding on to its playoff spot had to fight and claw for a 92-89 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves at Staples Center on Wednesday night.

Even so, the game wasn't secure until Marcus Banks took a pass from Kevin Garnett (18 points), who was double-teamed by Kwame Brown and Smush Parker, and missed a three-pointer.

The Lakers let the final few seconds run off the clock, seemingly happy the game was over, happy that Kobe Bryant (25 points) came through in the clutch with two big shots, happy that Luke Walton (9) hit a big-time shot with the game hanging in the balance and happy that Lamar Odom continued to come up big.
AP photo
Kobe Bryant shoots after getting past Minnesota Timberwolves' Trenton Hassell, top left, and Ricky Davis during the second half of the Lakers' 92-89 victory on Wednesday.

"We stayed tough tonight and made the big plays when we needed to," said Odom, who had 20 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists in 44 minutes.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:43 am    Post subject:

L.A. Lakers 92, Wolves 89
Los Angeles' superstar got his way in the end, sending the Wolves to their sixth loss in a row.
Steve Aschburner, Star Tribune


L.A. Lakers 92, Wolves 89

L.A. Clippers 95, Wolves 87

Phoenix 110, Timberwolves 102

Wolves owner trying to stay patient

Utah 96, Wolves 93
LOS ANGELES - A sound defensive plan against Kobe Bryant and terrific results for nearly the entire game added up, unfortunately for the Timberwolves, to a 92-89 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night at Staples Center, with Bryant saving his best for absolutely last.

Bryant, after managing only six points in the first half, scored 11 in the third quarter. But he was sitting at 21 points, on 10-for-23 shooting, with less than a minute left.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:54 am    Post subject:

Injuries Never Seem to Stop
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
March 16, 2006

It all started when Vlade Divac decided his back wasn't firm enough, nor was his desire, even with $5.4 million left in the last year of his contract.

The Lakers have since experienced a cavalcade of injuries and ailments, from Aaron McKie's quadriceps to Slava Medvedenko's back, so many stacked one on top of the other that Coach Phil Jackson had never really seen a team so banged up.


"Not one that I've coached," he said Wednesday.

Chris Mihm is out indefinitely because of a severely sprained ankle, Devean George is out a while longer because of a slightly fractured wrist, and Laron Profit is no longer with the team because of a ruptured Achilles' tendon.

Medvedenko, out for the season because of a herniated disk, was waived earlier this month so the Lakers could sign Jim Jackson, and McKie only recently returned to the active list after sitting out 50 games.

To say the least, it has been a busy season for trainer Gary Vitti.

Some of the injuries themselves have been distinctive, if not obscure.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:55 am    Post subject:

George hopes to return soon
By Ross Siler, Staff Writer

More than a week after it happened, Devean George still doesn't know how he suffered a cracked wrist on his shooting hand against the San Antonio Spurs. What he does know is that he wants to play on the Lakers' upcoming road trip.

"It's getting crunch time," George said, "so it's going to have to feel real good, real soon."

George missed his fifth game Wednesday since suffering the injury and has yet to resume shooting. But George said he hoped to be back in the lineup when the Lakers play a nationally televised game at Cleveland on Sunday.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson said George pleaded to come along on the team's three-game trip - "I don't know what that says about his home life," Jackson teased - but the coach did not sound as optimistic about the wrist as George.

"We really have no idea about this injury," Jackson said. "It's such an unusual injury that the hand specialist has never seen anything quite like it before. Devean didn't fall on it. It's something that if somebody whacked him on the wrist, it had to be Karate Kid."

George said he didn't know how he hurt the wrist, only that he noticed it in the fourth quarter of the Lakers' game on March 6. He sat down to eat dinner afterward and felt shooting pain. The next day he was wearing a brace and his fingers were swollen.

The greatest concern for George is his range of motion, not the pain in the wrist. George said he did not know how restrictive a brace he would have to wear in games.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:57 am    Post subject:

Notebook: George eager to help team

12:59 AM PST on Thursday, March 16, 2006

Broderick Turner

LOS ANGELES - Devean George has watched the Lakers struggle, and it has pained him not to play because of a severely sprained right wrist.

George missed his fifth straight game Wednesday night, but he said he plans on playing Sunday in Cleveland.

"It's getting close to crunch time, and I'm starting to feel real good real soon," George said. "I'm just going to make it happen somehow, unless I'm killing the team. I'm going to try to do something."

George is the Lakers' sixth man, and his defense, rebounding and scoring off the bench have been missed.

He said he is eager to play.

"It's like every game means so much," George said. "Every game, every quarter is important. I just want to be a part of it, to help out."

George doesn't even recall how the injury happened.

"I always have these funny injuries that happen to me," George said. "In the fourth quarter (against San Antonio), I was just standing under the basket, they were taking the ball out and I just felt something pop out of my wrist. It was like real red."

Lakers coach Phil Jackson said the hand specialist George visited said he never saw an injury like George has.

"If somebody whacked him on the wrist, it had to be Karate Kid," Jackson said. "How quickly that heals on a shooting hand, I don't know."
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