Williams scores 30, Lakers beat Suns 97-77 without Kobe

Last month, The Post’s Fancy Stats guru Neil Greenberg delivered some sobering news to the floundering Los Angeles Lakers: Namely, that they’ll continue to be bad until they drastically cut Kobe Bryant’s minutes. And my job right now is to keep working these young guys and veteran guys that we have and keep them on the right track, keep them getting better and also just taking baby steps, if need be.

“This [season] is really a justified farewell to perhaps the best player in franchise history”. “These past few games we’ve played with a lot of confidence and played at a better pace”.

When he plays, the entire game revolves around Bryant and the younger players are forced to defer while playing a slow, half-court style of offense that does not suit them.

Go to Silver Screen and Roll for the Lakers celebration, if that’s what they’re choosing to do.

“That’s not a bad thing. I wake up the next day and think about the future and get excited again”. In some regards, there’s a silver lining. However, no player may have done more wearing two different numbers than Bryant has. On Wednesday morning that went from unspoken to boisterously announced when longtime Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak told ESPN that everything was taking a backseat to Kobe’s farewell. But the man has meant a lot to the sport of basketball, and a lot, even, to some of the Celtics players. Rookie guard D’Angelo Russell sat out with a sore throat, missing a game for the first time in his career. Jordan Clarkson put together back to back strong games against Boston (24 points) and the 76ers (19 points) in the team’s last two games.

During a disastrous six-week stretch filled with low points, the Phoenix Suns may have hit rock bottom.

There was the energetic and boundless athleticism of number eight, contrasted with the more controlled and exacting technical perfection of number twenty-four.

Lou Williams scored a season-high 30 points, and the Los Angeles Lakers sent Phoenix to its ninth straight loss with a 97-77 rout of the cold-shooting Suns on Sunday night. “It’s going to be a really sad moment when we look at our roster sheet, and you go down the sheet and Kobe Bryant’s name is not going to be on it”.

“I told them that we didn’t come out in the fourth quarter with the same aggressiveness that we did in the first three quarters”, Scott said. Kobe has had a decent year in terms of fantasy production but it makes sense to be wary of his position right now. The game only became mildly interesting when the Lakers secured their first winning streak of the season after going on a 12-2 run midway through the fourth quarter for an 86-72 lead with 5:13 remaining. He had a similar game against the Suns and, more importantly, got 30 minutes of playing time.