Lakers rookies Russell, Randle dispute coach’s ‘scared’ claim after Thunder loss

The Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder don’t face each another until Saturday.

Los Angeles Lakers forward Larry Nance Jr. “He respects the game, the past, the present, the future, he respects it all”, Durant said.

Through the endless grind accumulated from almost two decades of National Basketball Association excellence, Kobe Bryant remains determined to finish out the 20th and final year of his National Basketball Association career.

Meanwhile, Ellie Day, the wife of Australian golf star Jason Day, still has concussion symptoms despite being released from hospital after being fallen upon by LeBron James while sitting courtside at Cleveland’s win over the Thunder last week.

Durant finished with 22 points and eight rebounds, while Westbrook added 13 points and 11 assists. The Thunder won for the fifth straight time against the Lakers.

Fans even got a chance to see the old Dwight Howard who had a double-double with 16 points and 15 rebounds.

Brown, a seldom-used rookie, started in Bryant’s place against Durant.

Brown fouled Durant only 37 seconds into the game. The Thunder had seven dunks in the first half, three of them alley-oops from Westbrook to Steven Adams. The Thunder did a good job of shutting down everyone else, which allowed them to take a 67-41 halftime advantage.

“It was pretty heavy-duty surgery I had this summer”, Bryant said, referring to the operation which repaired his torn rotator cuff. “Come out ready and focus on what we need to focus on and do our job”. “The thing that I always tell you guys is I control what I can, and I go out there and play hard”.

“I like took off and ran across the baseline, tried to get back before the ref saw me and, uh, I caught Denzel’s (Washington) attention and the ref caught me and I don’t know what we did”, Russell said, according to ESPN.

Lakers: Scott coached the then-New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) during their two-season stay in Oklahoma City (2005-06 and 2006-07) and said he has fond memories of that time…. Oklahoma City also out-rebounded the Lakers 56-32, and had 28 assists to the Lakers 14.

Then the Bucks left for a four-game road trip, swinging through California for three games against the Lakers, Clippers and Warriors, and then the Suns. With Bryant (who has really improved lately) missing the game due to some shoulder pain or without him, the Lakers are a team that seems to be at odds with itself. At his age, with his flight time being less and less, one would expect his assists to steadily climb, but when the rest of the team is struggling, it does not matter how open they are when Bryant passes them the rock, they need to feed off of his game I.Q. and capitalize, or why even play the game?

He dunked Thursday for the first time since January and the home crowd went bonkers.