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Kobe Bryant Leads Dwight Howard-Less Lakers Over Brooklyn Nets
By
Derek Evers
Published Feb 5, 2013
Modified Feb 6, 2013
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By
Derek Evers
Published Feb 5, 2013
Modified Feb 6, 2013
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"This is my first time in Brooklyn," Kobe Bryant admitted after the Los Angeles Lakers' 92-83 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night. "I enjoyed it."
Clearly.
Picking up the slack for a team without Dwight Howard and Metta World Peace, and losing Pau Gasol with four minutes remaining in the game, Bryant shifted from the pass-friendly player he's become as of late to the pure scorer he's been his entire career to lead the Lakers to their 10th consecutive victory over the Nets. Despite only making 9 of the 24 shots he took, Bryant finished with 21 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and one highlight-reel dunk over Gerald Wallace and Kris Humphries that lifted the Barclays Center out of their seats.
"I was pretty shocked that the lane was so wide open," Bryant said of the dunk with just over three minutes left in the game. "I think everybody's been drinking the Kobe pass Kool-Aid, so everybody kind of stayed on the perimeter on the shooters and it just parted like the Red Sea. So I felt a little like Moses."
On a night that was supposed to be Dwight Howard's introduction to the city and team he lobbied hard to join last summer, the Lakers center missed his third consecutive game with a partially torn labrum; a disappointment for the Brooklyn faithful who wanted to get a firsthand look at the league's newest version of the "big three."
Disappointment is a word being thrown around these Los Angeles Lakers a lot it seems. Tonight wasn't one of those times.
Brook Lopez left no doubt the Nets were fortunate they didn't trade for Howard in the off-season, finishing with a game-high 30 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks, but he had little help as the Nets could only muster 34.8% from the field.
The game started sloppy—a theme that would play throughout—with plenty of bricks and airballs to accompany an overall poor shooting performance by both teams. The second quarter did little to rectify things for the Nets, who, despite being off since Friday's victory over the Chicago Bulls seemed a step slower than LA, who shot 60% from the field in the period. Brooklyn responded with maybe the worst 12-minutes of their season as they could only muster 16 points on 26% shooting. If not for Brook Lopez, who accounted for one-third of the team's points and baskets made, the Nets would've found themselves in an even deeper deficit than the 49-40 halftime hole they were in.
The Lakers would continue their recent trend of losing late leads, as the Nets crawled back to tie it early in the fourth. The teams would then tie or trade leads 9 times over the next five minutes before Kobe's momentum-shifting dunk.
Lopez responded with a three-point play to give Brooklyn an 83-82 edge with 2:33 to play. It would be the last points the Nets would score all night.
"To their credit, they closed out the game well," Lopez said, "but I just feel those 2 1/2 minutes are about as bad as I played on both ends of the floor all season."
If he was bad, the rest of the Nets were downright awful. Lopez accounted for 12 of Brooklyn's 19 points in a fourth quarter that saw the team shoot a paltry 29.2%. Deron Williams only scored 4 of his 15 points in the second half, as the Nets failed to capitalize against a severely shorthanded Lakers squad.
"I thought we came out really well in that first quarter and then in the second quarter things kind of went south," Williams said. "I don't know why, I thought we were ready for this game, but proven wrong tonight."
After finishing a tough four-game home stretch 2-2, the Nets now travel to Detroit to play the 18-31 Pistons on Wednesday, and Washington to face the 12-35 Wizards on Friday. Hopefully offering some reprieve before another tough week that will see Brooklyn face the San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, and Denver Nuggets—teams with a combined 99-48 record—before heading into the All-Star weekend.
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