Thunder Pummel Lakers For Second Time In Five Days

Letting fans of an opposing team take over your arena to the tune of 75% to 25% is embarrassing… listening to those fans boo Nikola Jokic while he is at the free throw line late in the Denver Nuggets loss to the Los Angeles Lakers is flat out shameful.

Kobe Bryant sat out the entire second quarter, watching from the bench as his team fell behind by as many as 21 points.

L.A. native Russell Westbrook led the Thunder with 23 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists. The Clippers have suddenly dropped into a funk with three straight losses after winning nine of their previous 11 games.TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, Prime Ticket (Clippers), TWC SportsNet (Lakers)ABOUT THE CLIPPERS (16-13): The Clippers have been off since Monday’s 100-99 loss to the Thunder and are hoping a few days of practice will help cure their woes.

Curry has wondered if the Warriors could have five All-Star selections, and the team did have five players appear in the balloting totals.

Then in a flurry, only temporarily slowed by hopeless Byron Scott timeouts, the Thunder overwhelmed a disheartened Lakers defense.

However, through December, Kobe has hit a small groove, and the Lakers, if nothing else, are playing respectably.

“It was a great test for me tonight to see if I could play both ends of the floor”, Bryant said. A smiling Kobe Bryant (who had recently listed KD as one of the five greatest players that he’s ever played against) couldn’t stop singing Durant’s praises after the contest, noting that Durant “plays with no fear” and that he’s “a fantastic player”.

“In Phoenix, why the hell I was guarding him at 36, 37, I don’t know”, Hill told Sporting News.

Meanwhile, the Clippers seem to be having a hard time finding their groove this season despite a star-laden roster and will go to Friday’s game against the Lakers riding a three-game losing streak. “You can train a cat all you want to bark”.

Nance, who in his senior season at Wyoming was named to the All-Mountain West first team and was the league’s co-defensive player of the year, is learning to do it all over again in the National Basketball Association. The Thunder did a good job capitalizing some big second-chance points. He said that he is not pushing to play on the US Olympic team in Rio, but it would, definitely, make for a “beautiful ending” to his storied 20-year career, according to Yahoo Sports.

Kobe Bryant didn’t play that night because of a sore right shoulder, but his presence made little difference this time, as the Thunder blew the game wide open with a 22-0 burst during the first 5:21 of the third quarter to build a 79-46 lead.

So, there’s no sense in yelling at them.

Denver’s Sixth Man of the Year candidate, Will Barton, scored 23 points before halftime, but managed just two the rest of the way with Bryant switched in as his primary defender.

Chris Bosh scored 20 points for Miami, which missed a pair of go-ahead shots in the final three seconds. Meanwhile, it will be the first Christmas Day game for the Lakers young stars in D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle, if Randle is healthy enough to play.

Bryant finished with 19 points.

“I had one out of my system on the break”, Bryant said.

“They would love nothing more than to beat us by 40”.