O'NEAL FINDS LAKERS' EDGE LAKERS 100, CHICAGO 88.Byline: Howard Beck Staff Writer CHICAGO - The Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are a professional basketball team based in Chicago, Illinois. They play in the National Basketball Association. The team was founded in 1966, and has won six NBA Championships since. commemorated the 10th anniversary of their 1991 championship, the United Center folks rolled generous video of a smiling 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. and a champagne-soaked Horace Grant Horace Junior Grant (born July 4 1965 in Augusta, Georgia) is a retired American basketball player. He attended and played college basketball at Clemson University, before playing professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he became a 4-time NBA champion. , and the good feelings rained over the Bulls alumni club along the Lakers bench. But in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?" midmost of all this happy reminiscing, in an otherwise-dead arena, the Lakers needed to find an edge and an urgency Thursday, just to push their way past the now unrecogniza-Bull edition of Chicago's basketball team. So they rode Shaquille O'Neal's anger and frustration, and his 39 points, and took a 100-88 victory. Hacked repeatedly by a parade of anonymous Chicago big men, O'Neal kept his composure in the first half, then unleashed his fury with a series of angry dunks in a 17-point second half, and the Lakers followed his lead. ``You can't help but feed off of that when he plays like that and you see that,'' said Brian Shaw Brian K. Shaw (born March 22, 1966 in Oakland, California) is a former professional basketball player. The 6' 6" Shaw could play both guard spots, but was used primarily at point guard over the course of his 14 seasons in the league. . ``You want to get him the ball to get you pumped up and it's infectious with everybody else.'' The victory over the NBA's losingest los·ing·est adj. Slang Less successful or losing more often than any others of its kind: "help turn around one of the network's losingest nights of the week" Washington Post. team - the Bulls are now 12-62 - took a little too long to develop but produced satisfying results. With Utah losing to Sacramento, the Lakers climbed to No. 3 in the West, with a half-game lead on the Jazz. Conveniently, one of those two teams had to lose Thursday, so all the Lakers (50-26) needed was a win to either move into a tie with the Kings or past the Jazz. With six games left to play, the Lakers admitted to some scoreboard-watching, a pastime they could afford because their opponent didn't require much attention. ``We knew that one of the teams would lose tonight, so we'd take some kind of step forward and it feels good,'' Derek Fisher Derek Lamar Fisher (born August 9 1974 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American professional basketball player with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was with the Utah Jazz but asked to be released from his contract to care for his 10-month-old daughter, who has cancer. said. ``It seems like we've been reeling backwards for a long time.'' There was little doubt the Lakers would win here Thursday, though they trudged through an uninspired first half, allowing the Bulls to make half their shots and settling for a five-point lead at halftime. ``This is a difficult place to play,'' Jackson said. ``There's so many people and they're not energized; it's just flat in that arena right now and it's really noticeable for a player. We told them they have to generate their own energy in the course of this game, because the crowd's pretty flat out there. So at halftime, I thought they got their energy back and we did some good things out there.'' Kobe Bryant Kobe Bean Bryant (born July 23 1978) is an American All-Star shooting guard in the National Basketball Association (NBA) who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers. rested his sore ankle for the seventh time in eight games, leaving O'Neal to carry the load and take the punishment. He got clobbered across the face by Brad Miller Brad Miller can refer to any of several people:
adj. 1. Cooked by stewing: stewed prunes. 2. Informal Intoxicated; drunk. stewed Adjective 1. . He'd already been hacked at various times by Miller and Dalibor Bagaric. That produced all the energy the Lakers needed. ``Just another day at the office for me. Don't even feel it,'' O'Neal said. Well, maybe a little. He proceeded to destroy the Bulls and eventually took out his frustration with a hard foul of Jake Voskuhl. Crawford called it a flagrant foul, leaving the Lakers incensed. Shaw and O'Neal both earned technical fouls from Crawford and the Bulls turned the sequence into a four-point play that briefly chopped the lead to seven points. ``That wasn't flagrant at all,'' O'Neal said. ``That's all the officials have been doing all year. That's how they work.'' Said Jackson, ``He gets a lot worse every game than he gives out.'' CAPTION(S): box Box: GAME RECAP |
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