LAKERS' SEARCH GOES ON LOSING STREAK IS NOW AT SEVEN DENVER 113, LAKERS 86.Byline: ROSS SILER Staff Writer DENVER - Even with the losses coming one after another, now adding up to the third-longest losing streak in Lakers' history, coach Phil Jackson
Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson (born September 17, 1945 in Deer Lodge, Montana) is the current coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, an American professional basketball team. has maintained that his team can do damage in the playoffs if it can enter with any momentum. They are still searching for a victory, any victory, after Thursday night's 113-86 loss to the Denver Nuggets Nuggets can refer to several branches of interest:
The Lakers took the first step toward being whole with the return of Lamar Odom Lamar Joseph Odom (born November 6 1979, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York) is an American professional basketball player who currently plays power forward (also plays both forward spots and is a "point-forward") for the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers. and Luke Walton Luke Theodore Walton (born March 28 1980 in San Diego, California) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His position is small forward. . They built an 11-point lead in the second quarter before squandering squan·der tr.v. squan·dered, squan·der·ing, squan·ders 1. To spend wastefully or extravagantly; dissipate. See Synonyms at waste. 2. it and watching the Nuggets run away with the game in a 36-21 third quarter. Denver moved into a tie with the Lakers for sixth in the Western Conference standings with the win. The two teams will meet twice more before the season ends; the Lakers were the seventh seed in last season's playoffs. Linas Kleiza Linas Kleiza (pronounced as IPA: [ˈlinɐs ˈklæizɐ] in American English) (born January 3, 1985 in Kaunas, Lithuanian SSR, USSR) is a Lithuanian professional basketball player in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets. scored a career-high 29 points off the bench for the Nuggets while Carmelo Anthony (26 points) took over in the third quarter. What had been a tie score at halftime saw Denver take an 87-72 lead into the fourth quarter at Pepsi Center. It was a dark finish to a day that saw both Jackson and the Lakers fined $50,000 for comments Jackson made charging that the league was conducting a "witch hunt" in disciplining Kobe Bryant this season. The picture of the third quarter was Allen Iverson twirling Twirling is any of several artforms, hobbies, or sport and recreational activities accomplished by spinning or rotating the twirled object either for exercise, or in a rhythmic, or otherwise artful manner. his arms, exhorting the crowd to its feet as the Nuggets started to pull ahead. They got two 3-pointers from Linas Kleiza and Steve Blake as well as dunks by Nene Nene (nēn, nĕn) or Nen (nĕn), river, c.90 mi (140 km) long, rising in the Northampton Uplands, central England, and flowing NE past Northampton, Oundle, Peterborough, and Wisbech to the Wash. and Marcus Camby. Then there was Carmelo Anthony, the player Bryant counseled during his 15-game suspension for fighting earlier this season. Anthony was brilliant in the third quarter and Odom, playing with a torn labrum labrum /la·brum/ (la´brum) pl. la´bra [L.] an edge, rim, or lip. la·brum n. pl. la·bra A lip-shaped anatomical edge, rim, or structure. labrum pl. in his left shoulder, was powerless to stop him. Anthony scored 10 points and dished dished adj. 1. Concave. 2. Slanting toward one another at the bottom. Used of a pair of wheels. Adj. 1. dished - shaped like a dish or pan dish-shaped, patelliform concave - curving inward out four assists in the quarter. Even when the Lakers switched Bryant onto Anthony, the Nuggets forward hit a 17-foot turnaround jumper over him. The losing streak is now the Lakers' third longest; they also dropped seven consecutive games in the 1991-92 season. If they lose tonight against Portland, the Lakers would match the eight-game skid from the dark days of the 2004-05 season. The Lakers trailed by as many as 27 points in the second half, in which they were outscored 62-35. Bryant finished with 25 points on nine of 19 shooting and nine assists. Smush Parker once again couldn't get on track for the Lakers, making just 1 of 8 shots and picking up five fouls in 20 minutes before he left in the third quarter. The Lakers brought only the second six-game losing streak of Jackson's coaching career into the game. Jackson once coached a Chicago Bulls team that lost only 10 games the entire 1995-96 season. They were playing for the first time since Sunday's 36-point drubbing by Dallas, the Lakers' worst home loss since moving to Los Angeles from Minneapolis in 1960. The Lakers were playing with their top starting five - Parker, Bryant, Walton, Odom and Kwame Brown - for only the seventh time this season and the first time since Dec. 12, when Odom suffered a sprained knee ligament against Houston. Maybe there's also a reason why the Lakers were 5-1 in games with that starting five this season. The connection between the five was apparent as the Lakers broke to a 13-6 lead in the first quarter. ross.siler@dailynews.com (818) 713-3610 CAPTION(S): photo Photo: The Lakers' Luke Walton, back in the starting lineup, drives around Denver's Nene during Thursday's game. David Zalubowski/Associated Press |
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