Kobe Bryant Leads NBA All-Star Voting By Wide Margin

“We were really looking forward to it. Most of the time you enjoy the time in the morning with your family, but for that game, we were all a little chippy”.

Now Bryant turns his attention to one final Christmas showcase, a stage that typically hasn’t gone well for him. The All-Star Game will be played February 14 at Air Canada Centre in Toronto. They defeated the Nuggets 111-107 in Denver on Tuesday night.

Rookie D’Angelo Russell had a team-high 16 points off the bench for the Lakers.

“It was fun”, Durant said. I can get to the spots I want to get to – not as quickly as I want to get to them. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to be very happy (Friday). “We did a good job”.

“With what he’s done with his career, he should be on the All-Star team”, Rivers said prior to his team’s Christmas Day showdown against the Lakers. By then, Oklahoma City held a commanding 79-48 advantage. “That was kind of indicative of how this season has gone”, Coach Byron Scott said. Anyone following the @Lakers Twitter account has come across a Bryant tweet with #NBAVote recently, and just about every one of those tweets have hundreds, if not thousands, of retweets.

Being the most notorious workhorse in an earn-it-or-lose-it league, Bryant’s emergence from the shadows and the sidelines is proof that there’s still plenty to be optimistic about in Los Angeles.

Bryant had 19 points on 7-of-22 shooting.

Oklahoma City outshot Los Angeles 55.8 percent to 38.3 in the first half.

The Thunder, who improved to 20-9 and third place in the Western Conference, put the Lakers away with a 22-0 run to start the third quarter.

It was just as bad in the paint, where OKC outscored LA by 40 points, 58-18.

NOTES: Defense sparked the Thunder’s recent run. They have lost their last seven games against the Clippers. Only twice had the opposition reached the 100-point mark….

But while in past meetings the question regarding the Clippers – Lakers clash would be by how much the Clips would win, it’s hard to say that with a lot of confidence this season. Before the 2011-12 campaign, they had captured six straight….

Last night in his team’s 94-84 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers at the Staples Center, Bryant hit four of his ten shots, including three of his five three-point attempts.