 |
 |
 |
|
LOS ANGELES - What differentiates these Lakers as they try to recapture the championship sparkle of the start of this decade is that to get to the elite level, they have to do a lot of growing. Their 111-104 Game 5 victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night at Staples Center took a lot of watering, but ultimately there were flowers.
Kobe Bryant's sore back had him showing signs of fatigue in the third quarter, and he wound up not putting up a field-goal attempt in the fourth quarter - a total turnaround from the Bryant-centric overtime failure in Game 4. Bryant didn't even get a foul shot until 10.7 seconds were left in this squeaker of a game.
Still, the Lakers never trailed and held on. They won with Lamar Odom moving without the ball - his admitted weakness as recently as this season. They won with gritty reserve point guard Jordan Farmar shaking the confusion out of his head and attacking the rim with one huge tide-turning three-point play early in the fourth quarter that had Bryant forgetting about the back pain to mob him in celebration.
And they won with skinny Pau Gasol, pushed around so much in the past two games in Utah that the Lakers lost to even this best-of-7 series, pushing back. Gasol shoved his way to position for the put-back slam with 20.5 seconds left for a 107-102 Lakers lead.
Utah center Mehmet Okur could be seen asking Gasol a little later if he'd pushed him in the back illegally on the play, and Gasol had to cock his head to the side a little and show that if he did, he did only as much as he needed.
Bryant finished with a team-high 26 points on just 6-for-10 field-goal shooting in 41 minutes, and Lakers coach Phil Jackson noted afterward that Bryant's shot was flat.
But Bryant had support: Gasol had 21 points and eight assists, shaking off his empty third quarter.
Odom's two free throws - after Bryant had missed two - gave the Lakers a lead back at a critical point, and he finished with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Fellow starters Derek Fisher (14 points) and Vladimir Radmanovic (15 points) also had their moments.
And so the Lakers pushed Utah to the brink for Game 6 in Salt Lake City on Friday night.
"I thought we were a little bit excited," Jackson said. "We didn't have the kind of poise I like to see. But our energy was good. That's for sure."
The Lakers lost three consecutive games twice this season, once in November before the team had jelled and once in January after losing Andrew Bynum and before getting Gasol. And ultimately, despite Deron Williams' 27 points and 10 assists, turnover-prone Utah couldn't make it happen now against a Lakers team that hasn't lost a home game for a month and a half.
LAKERS BENCH MOB
Farmar came into the game 1 for 16 from the field in this series. But Jackson reminded reporters before the game that Farmar is one of three players to appear in every Lakers game this season - Bryant and Fisher are the others - and dismissed any scenario where Farmar would be passed over for usual shooting guard Sasha Vujacic entirely.
4SoCalFan 
