Vintage Bryant leads Lakers over Nuggets

“[But] I can get to them”.

“I felt like I was back playing in the Arena-Auditorium in Wyoming”, Nance said.

His offensive numbers were almost overshadowed by his defence. The Thunder led by 38 at one point, and actually the Lakers were up by 3 at one point in this one, until giving up a huge, game-changing run.

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. I can get to the spots I want to get to – not as quickly as I want to get to them, but I can get there.

Bryant converted on a four-point play.

The cheering continued throughout the night whenever he hit one of his 10 field goals and nine free throws.

Just like fellow Laker, Magic Johnson and Celtic-legend, Larry Bird – Kobe could probably follow their footsteps and retire as a victor.

“As soon as they fell for it, they knew”, Bryant said. Roberson scored seven of his 15 points in the period, and added three boards, an assist, a steal and two blocks, just in that period. The Nuggets have lost two straight at home to teams with a combined record of 11-42.

“He’s still Kobe Bryant”, Nuggets guard Jameer Nelson said. “I mean, you can train a cat to bark all you want, but the damn cat’s not going to bark”. They also had a 56-32 rebounding edge over the Lakers (5-23) and outshot them 54.8 percent to 34.9. “If I had the time, I would’ve sat and taken pictures and signed every single thing for every single person that came out”.

“Barton was tearing us up in the first half”, Scott said. I wish I had a chance to guard Russell [Westbrook] a little bit tonight, because those are the things that I’ll miss.

Bryant indeed guarded Barton for all of his second half shots, but what is less clear is if Bryant really deserves full credit for shutting down Denvers’ primary bench scorer. “It was a great test for me to see if I could still play both ends of the floor”. Serge (Ibaka) hit big shots and everybody was excited for him.

Harris had a fastbreak dunk and a 3-pointer to get Denver within 103-100.

After ending the first half on a 14-2 run, Oklahoma City started the third quarter with a 22-0 burst that finally ended on Bryant’s reverse layup with 6:21 left until the fourth. But suddenly, maybe with conditioning finally kicking in and his legs no longer pulling him down, it looks like he’s not just having fun, but actually playing well. He had 18 in the first quarter alone, coming in immediately for a temporarily injured Gary Harris and heating up with a snap of a finger.

The Nuggets were without Danilo Gallinari (sprained left ankle) and Emmanuel Mudiay (sprained right ankle).