Lakers’ Get a Blazing Victory
The Los Angeles Lakers secured their sixth consecutive victory by beating their rival team from Portland, Trail Blazers, 100-86 on Sunday 5th January, 2009. This was the 15th time the Lakers remained unbeaten in their hometown. Star players, Kobe Bryant scored 26 points and Pau Gasol scored another 19 adding massively to the winning total.
Portland’s player LaMarcus Aldridge was the lead scorer on the team who secured 22 points with another 11 points from rebounds. The five starters all scored in double figures. However, Trail Blazers succeeded in shooting only 39%.
This was the first time the Lakers had come face to face with the Train Blazers since their winning game with them at the opening of the season. After the 96-76win, this was the lowest lead victory ever for Portland over Los Angeles. The Lakers being the defending champions of Western Conference didn’t do much to elevate the enthusiasm of their fans when they barely managed to raise their 4 points lead, thanks to a 15-3 run only towards the end of the game. Basketball livescores are continuously being updated on ScoresPro.com.
The players that really made a difference were Bryant and Gasol. They got the ball rolling for the Lakers with their 16 foot jumpers. Derek Fisher did well by adding a 3 pointer to their score and Sasha Vujacic made a come back with an exciting 4 points play after Rudy Fernandez of the Blazers fouled him when he was getting ready to throw a 3 pointer. Vujacic played exceptionally well considering the fact that he was suffering from a bad case of tonsillitis. He added 11 points to his team’s score in just 26 minutes.
Vladimir Radmanovic scored 16 points of which 12 were scored only in the final quarter alone. Portland got the opportunity to score plenty of times (14 to be precise) of which they could only get 3 shots. All these were 3 pointers and they never got closer than 14 points.
To be fair, Portland was missing its’ star line-up what with Brandon Roy, their top scorer, missing the game due to a hamstring injury in his right leg. However, the Lakers were unable to take advantage of the situation. It was expected that they would go for a quick start but they weren’t able to get a lead until the very end of the first quarter thanks to the 2 free throws that Trevor Ariza took full advantage of, giving his team a lead of 51-50 with only 52.5 seconds left of the quarter.
Portland tried hard to turn the game over when they managed to get a lead of 25-19 over Lakers through out a quarter of the game but they were unable to maintain it. They managed it in a total of 9 turnovers in just a span of 7:25 falling short of only one as compared to the Lakers win over Utah on Friday, 2nd January.
Just a reminder that currently the title is held by Boston Celtics who are the defending champions. Lakers has so far defeated 4 teams that have beaten Celtics, i.e Portland, Boston, Denver and New York. The NBA is the place to be if you are a die hard fan of men’s basketball. Stay posted for more on NBA basketball results.
