Kobe Bryant Scores 25, Lakers Lose

“I think people see the talent these two teams have as far as young players”, Wolves coach Sam Mitchell said.

Bryant hit his first three shots, including a 3-pointer, but hit just two of his next 10 shots.

Plenty of raised eyebrows and angry scowls came from the Los Angeles Lakers faithful after head coach Byron Scott chose to bench Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell.

Ray McCallum started at point guard for Tony Parker, who was held out of the game by Popovich to rest for Saturday night’s game at Atlanta. “I think we found from a great player that he was more interested in the basketball on-the-court stuff than anything else”. Los Angeles is now 3-19 overall and 2-13 on the road. Interestingly, Kobe Bryant was actually sitting on the bench in the clutch moments of the game which is something noteworthy.

Kevin Martin, who has been working his way out of a slump for a while, scored a season-high 37 points, making six of nine three-pointers.

I also have to say I am super excited about what this means for the evolution of the playground “Kobe!” shout. In Wednesday’s loss at Minnesota, Bryant scored 11 and sat out the fourth quarter, deferring to the Lakers’ promising young players.

Russell continued his recent roll, scoring 7 of the Lakers first 9 points and hitting his first four shots before coming back to earth and finishing with 12 points on 5-14 shooting.

James Harden, Klay Thompson, and Gordon Hayward are names that, for me, should be looked at way before thinking about selecting Kobe as part of the final 12 that will be on the plane to Rio next year.

Rookie of the Year candidate Karl-Anthony Towns finished the game with a strong performance again by recording 26 points and 14 rebounds. The Target Center crowd showed up in a big way to see the Black Mamba’s last trip to Minnesota, and the evening delivered a nail-biting overtime win.

“I thought this is exactly how it should be for him wherever he goes, whatever arena it is, that they should give him a standing ovation and they should have some type of tribute to him and to his career”, Scott said.

During the last four minutes of the game, the 18,000 fans kept chanting “We want Kobe”, when in all reality, you didn’t want Kobe because your team would’ve most certainly lost.

Bryant scored 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting.

“I remember when he played the Sonics, and he threw the ball off the backboard and dunked it”, LaVine said.

“They were playing with good energy and great momentum”, Bryant said of Russell and Randle.

“You could have a little bit of a correlation to it”, Scott said. Aldridge scored the Spurs first six points before Tim Duncan scored with a reverse layup.

The Los Angeles Lakers finished their longest trip in seven years the only way they knew how.

Martin had been shooting just 31 percent in 15 games since he missed one due to personal reasons.

The Lakers used to play here, y’know.