Lakers improve to 19-3 with win over Kings

When you’ve only lost three games all season, they tend to stick with you.  That was the case for the LA Lakers on Friday night who avenged one of their rare losses this year with a 112-103 victory over the Sacramento Kings.  With the win the Lakers improved their record to 19-3 on the season and joined the Eastern Conference leading Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers as early season candidates for the NBA title.

Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 32 points for the Lakers while contributing 7 rebounds.  Pau Gasol added 18 points and 11 boards, while Trevor Ariza scored 13 off the bench. John Salmons paced the Kings with 26 points with Beno Udrih and Francisco Garcia scoring 17 and 13 respectively.   The Lakers scored more than 100 points for their fourteenth consecutive game, averaging a hefty 111.4 PPG during the run.  The Kings, meanwhile, have allowed more than 100 points in 39 of their last 53 games.

The Kings didn’t go down without a fight, and pressured the Lakers until the end of the game.  Kobe Bryant noted that despite his team’s inability to put the game away that he was happy with the overall performance:

"We did better playing against them tonight. In Sacramento we weren't able to contain them in any stretch. "They made a couple of big 3s down the stretch on a couple of blown assignments. But still in all, we did OK."  

Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson said that his team’s mistakes were the reason the Kings were able to hang around for so long:

"I told them we found ways to keep this ballclub in the game, in the end of the first half, in the end of the third quarter, and at the end of the game. We did it through a variety of things. Let's not take anything away from Sacramento, but we really kept them in the game."

Kings’ scoring leader John Salmon, meanwhile, found some positives to take away from the effort—a necessity, he stressed, on a 6-17 basketball team:

"I think in the past, we would have quit before the game was over. We kept fighting and we were right there with them. At this point, we have to take anything that we can get."

Sacramento coach Reggie Theus concurred with Salmon’s “glass half full” view, but added:

"They're a great basketball team and down the stretch, we made a couple of mistakes and they capitalized on them."

The Lakers host Minnesota on Sunday and New York on Tuesday before heading out on the road with games at Miami, Orlando and Memphis.  The Kings will host New York on Saturday and Minnesota on Monday before playing next week at Portland, Houston and New Orleans.