Jonas Valanciunas: Expected to miss six weeks with hand injury
Jonas Valanciunas has decided against surgery for his broken metacarpal in his non-shooting hand.
The Lakers appear headed for another dismal season, and their leader, Kobe Bryant has been — by his standards — very bad. That injury forced him to miss a total of 18 games previous year.
The Raptors got off to a flying start with five wins in a row, including a victory over Championship hopefuls the Oklahoma City Thunder yet they then slumped and lost six out of their next eight games.
The Minnesota Timberwolves have been praised this season for acquiring veterans like Kevin Garnett, Andre Miller and Tayshaun Prince to tutor their burgeoning young talent; it’s nearly like the Lakers tried to copy that plan, except halfway through they spilled soda all over their cheat sheet.
Valanciunas had signed a four-year contract extension worth $64 million this past offseason, as he only had one year left in his current deal.
Joe Johnson added 17 points for the Nets, who have won two in a row at home, where they have barely played this season.
“It’s kind of like putting your feet to the fire”, Lakers Coach Byron Scott said.
Can you blame him? Scott has said he’s not going to sacrifice wins to develop his young nucleus, which makes no sense on a 2-9 team. At times we get too bunched up.
“But I understand his situation”. These guys are so used to having the ball in their hands. “And that’s all a part of growing up”.
“We could got small also with Luis (Scola)”, Casey offered after Bismack Biyombo and Lucas Nogueira were offered up as possible replacements. DeMar DeRozan is averaging 20.9 points and 4.3 assists while Kyle Lowry is averaging 20.7 points and 4.7 rebounds.
Toronto had seven different players contribute to the 3-point barrage with Lowry leading the charge with all seven of his made field goals for the game coming from beyond the arc. Kobe played a great game the other day and said that he felt great, but the season is still early.
The Lakers responded with a 12-2 spurt capped by a 3 from Metta World Peace that narrowed the gap to 93-87 with 3:49 remaining.
Kobe Bryant has been on and off about his decision to retire.
DeMarre Carroll’s hot start helped to give the Raptors enough of a cushion to survive a terrible second half. The reserves built up a sizeable lead and allowed Stephen Curry to rest the entire fourth quarter.
Overall, the Raptors connected on 43.6 percent of their shots and converted a season-high 15 of 33 3-pointers. He had 10 points Friday on five-for-13 shooting in a season-high 37 minutes. We’ll probably get him a few minutes. Obviously we want to keep him as efficient as possible, but I know he knows his body better than anybody. “Once he gets rolling like that, we all know we’re going to ride the wave as much as possible and try to make everything easy for him”.
Raptors: G Norman Powell, who played four seasons at UCLA, spent the entire game on the bench in his first visit to Staples Center as a pro.