Kings-Lakers Preview

By ALAN FERGUSON
Posted Nov 11 2012 7:18PM

While rumors continue to swirl about the possible return of Phil Jackson to the bench, the Los Angeles Lakers are keeping their focus on trying to move past their slow start.

The Lakers will attempt to move one step closer to the .500 mark when they welcome the short-handed Sacramento Kings to Staples Center on Sunday night.

With the additions of superstars Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, expectations were sky high for Los Angeles to contend for another NBA title, but a 1-4 start cost coach Mike Brown his job. The Lakers made the move only several hours before facing Golden State on Friday but produced an inspired 101-77 rout with interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff guiding the team.

"It was sad to see Mike go, but we just got to keep moving forward. We have to stay together," Howard said. "It's early in the season, and we're still trying to learn each other's game.

"Expectations are very high for this team. Management did what it had to do. It's on us to try to get better every day and continue to play hard and string some wins together."

Bickerstaff's tenure could be short as Jackson, who won five of his 11 NBA titles with the Lakers, spoke with the team about returning for a third stint Saturday. He claimed two of those championships in 2009 and 2010 before stepping down the next season.

"Knowing him the way I do, I think it's really just a matter of health, if he feels physically up to doing it," Kobe Bryant said Friday night. "He's a perfectionist. We all know he's a perfectionist. If he feels like he can come in here and give what he demands from himself, then I think he would be interested."

Bickerstaff, though, is expected to lead the Lakers (2-4) as they seek their first win streak of the season in Sunday's game against the Kings (2-4), who opened the season with three consecutive road losses.

Sacramento bounced back with two victories to open a homestand but couldn't finish that off with another win Friday as it shot a season-low 35.2 percent in a 97-86 loss to San Antonio.

"I think we have to focus more on just seeing the ball go through the net and stop rushing things," said guard Marcus Thornton, who tied Jason Thompson for the scoring lead with 17 points. "I know I'm rushing a lot of shots. We have to hold ourselves accountable on the offensive end and make it happen."

The NBA on Sunday made Kings center DeMarcus Cousins accountable for confronting San Antonio announcer Sean Elliott in a hostile manner after Friday's loss. Cousins will miss the contest against the Lakers along with Sacramento's home game Tuesday against Portland.

Top draft pick Thomas Robinson, meanwhile, will complete his two-game ban for elbowing Detroit's Jonas Jerebko during a 105-103 victory Wednesday.

The Kings have made enough happen to win three of the past five matchups with the Lakers after losing eight in a row and they've scored 100 or more points in all five of those games.

Thornton has appeared in three of those games and averaged 25.0 points on 56.0 percent shooting.

Bryant has scored 38 points in each of his last two home games against Sacramento and has averaged 33.3 in his past nine overall matchups. The Lakers have won seven of the past eight meetings at Staples Center, taking last season's only matchup there 115-107 on March 2.

They'll have to try to earn another win without Nash, who is expected to miss another week due to a small fracture in his leg.

Lakers beat Kings, move to 2-0 under Bickerstaff

By JOE RESNICK
Posted Nov 12 2012 1:24AM

LOS ANGELES (AP) If Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers' legion of fans get their wish, Bernie Bickerstaff's stint as a lame-duck interim head coach will end undefeated.

Howard had 23 points and 18 rebounds, Bryant scored 20, and the in-transition Lakers continued warming up for a possible return to the bench by Phil Jackson with a 103-89 victory over the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night.

Bickerstaff called the shots for the second straight game following the firing of Mike Brown on Friday with the team off to a 1-4 start - their worst in 19 years. They throttled Golden State 101-77 at Staples Center several hours after the change.

"Basically what we talked about this morning was the profound appreciation of their professionalism and how they have handled things," Bickerstaff said. "I've been around a lot of teams, and this is the consummate professional group. No one's naive. They've been around a long time and we've been around a long time, so they understand."

Lakers executive vice president Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak remain in negotiations with Jackson, whom they are trying to coax out of retirement for what would be his third coaching stint with the organization.

The 67-year-old Hall of Famer guided the club to five NBA titles and won six others with the Chicago Bulls. He walked away after the Lakers were swept by Dallas in the second round of the 2011 playoffs - denying the Zen Master his fourth three-peat.

"I'd be excited to have him out there," Bryant said. "I'm sure something will happen sooner than later. I mean, this organization moves pretty quickly once they have a direction on where they want to go and they always makes the right decision. For us players, we just go out there and do our jobs. It isn't anything that's been a distraction for us, but it's just been a long week for everybody."

This is the first time the Lakers changed head coaches during a season since 2004-05, when Rudy Tomjanovich left midway through the first year of a five-year contract due to health issues and was replaced by Frank Hamblen. It's the third time Bickerstaff has taken over the reins of an NBA team after a season was underway, including 1994-95 with Denver (20-12) and 1996-97 with Washington (22-13).

The Lakers have now changed head coaches on the fly in six of their 53 years in Los Angeles. On two of those occasions, they went on to win an NBA title. In 1979-80, Paul Westhead relieved Jack McKinney with the team off to a 10-4 start after McKinney was hospitalized due to a serious bicycle accident. Westhead was fired in 1981-82 with a 7-4 record, shortly after Magic Johnson publicly criticized him, and Pat Riley guided the team to the first of four championships under his watch.

"My job is to coach the team until they ring the bell," Bickerstaff said. "But listen. What's the reality here? I mean, we all know what's going on and I understand that. But I consented to do this for the organization, and I'm not worried about the big picture."

The Kings were forced to play short-handed with center DeMarcus Cousins and backup forward Thomas Robinson serving suspensions without pay. Forward Jason Thompson, shifting to center in place of Cousins, had 15 points and 10 assists for Sacramento before fouling out with 9:46 left. Jimmer Fredette scored a team-high 18, most coming after the outcome was long decided.

"It's unfortunate for our team right now to have those missing pieces, because there were a lot of good things we had been doing," coach Keith Smart said. "Tonight we did a lot of good things, even with our depleted team. We still had chances to maintain, but obviously we were playing against an elite group of players tonight."

Cousins began his two-game ban for confronting a Spurs TV analyst in a hostile manner following a 97-86 home loss to San Antonio on Friday night. Robinson completed his two-game absence, following his vicious elbow to the throat of Detroit's Jonas Jerebko during Sacramento's 105-103 home win last Wednesday. Cousins loses about $70,500 in salary and Robinson more than $82,000.

"It was tough," said forward Travis Outlaw, who made his first start of the season and had 11 points in 26 minutes. "I think the most we could have done was to try to get out and run at them a little bit more. But overall, everyone did leave it out there on the court."

The Lakers built a 72-57 lead with an 11-0 run, capped by Bryant's two free throws with 4:26 left in the third quarter. They extended the margin to as many as 22 with 4:23 remaining on a pair of 3-pointers 40 seconds apart by Metta World Peace. He and Paul Gasol each finished with 18 points.

"We were really just going out there and playing pickup basketball, to be honest," Bryant said. "We were out there freelancing, and that forces you to communicate with each other. But we have some form of structure and a little bit of an idea of what we want to do out there."

Howard had 14 points and 10 boards in the first half, including a short hook shot off an offensive rebound in the final seconds of the second quarter to give the Lakers a 57-48 lead at intermission.

"He'll have games like this. I mean, this is what he does," Bryant said of Howard. "I was pretty upset at him, though, because he kind of let a couple of rebounds go at the start of the game. I had an opportunity to get them, but I thought he was. And I told him: `Those are yours. That's what you do. You don't want to have a game where you finish 18 or 19 rebounds and it could have been 20.' It should have been a 23-20 night for him."

Steve Blake, starting at point guard for the fifth straight game because of Steve Nash's knee injury, was limited to 12 minutes in the half because of an abdominal strain that kept him off the court for almost 10 1/2 minutes.

NOTES: Bryant was at the free throw line at the midway mark of the second quarter when the sellout crowd began chanting "We Want Phil!" They must have been misguided. Jackson was a 73.6-percent free throw shooter during his 12 seasons as an NBA player, and Bryant was 83.8 percent lifetime coming in ... Smart got a technical foul early in the second quarter for complaining about a non-call against Antawn Jamison, who made a clean block on a layup by Marcus Thornton and sent him crashing to the floor ... Lakers F Devin Ebanks, who posted $5,000 bail following his arrest early Friday morning on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, was scratched for the second straight game. He is due back in court on Dec. 7 ... The Kings are 0-4 on the road, matching their worst start away from Arco Arena since 2007-08, when they dropped their first nine to tie a franchise record.

Notebook: Lakers 103, Kings 90

Dan Arritt, For NBA.com
Posted Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:08 AM - Updated Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:08 AM

THE FACTS: The Lakers had no mercy for the shorthanded Kings on Sunday night. Dwight Howard powered his way to 23 points and 18 rebounds and three other starters had 18 points or more in the 103-90 victory at Staples Center.

QUOTABLE: "When you have guys out like Sacramento did, those are tough games to play. Somehow, mentally, you let down, but I didn't find that to be the case. I thought the guys got busy"

--Lakers coach Bernie Bickerstaff

THE STAT: Sacramento was without starting center DeMarcus Cousins, who was handed a two-game suspension from the league earlier in the day for a confrontation that occurred with Spurs announcer Sean Elliott following a loss Friday night in Sacramento. Without their leading scorer and rebounder, the Lakers owned the glass against the league's weakest rebounding team, finishing with a 63-46 edge.

TURNING POINT: Jason Thompson, Cousins' replacement in the starting lineup, scored with 8:37 remaining in the third quarter to cut a nine-point halftime deficit to four. The Lakers reeled off the next 11 points, though, and the Kings pulled the parachute, never getting back within single digits.

HOT: Bickerstaff, who was named interim coach after Mike Brown was fired on Friday, is 2-0 in his new role. That didn't stop the fans at Staples Center from chanting 'We want Phil' for the second consecutive game. Phil Jackson is reportedly set to make a decision Monday as to whether he'll return for a third run as coach of the Lakers. As for those who played in the game, Kings guard Jimmer Fredette came off the bench to score 18 points in 11 minutes, going 7-for-9 from the field.

NOT: Kings guard Tyreke Evans continues to see his stock fall as an NBA player. After averaging 20.1 points and winning NBA Rookie of the Year honors in 2009-2010, he's seen his scoring average dip to 17.8 and then 16.5 last season. He came into this game averaging 11.8 points and shooting 36 percent from the field through the first six games. He managed nine points against the Lakers on 4-for-9 shooting.

GOOD MOVE: With the Kings missing their best interior player, Lakers guard Kobe Bryant made a conscious effort to get the ball inside to his post players. Howard and starting forward Pau Gasol each took 14 shots from the field and went to the free-throw line a combined 17 times. They also weren't shy about distributing the ball, combining for seven of L.A.'s 23 assists.

QUOTABLE II: "I thought our guys had to play out of position a lot against some very talented big guys, and I thought overall they did a good job."

--Kings coach Keith Smart

BAD MOVE: Sacramento backup forward Chuck Hayes had the hottest hand for the Kings during the second quarter. His jump hook gave Sacramento a 39-37 lead with 5:37 remaining in the first half, but he committed his third foul less than a minute later and went to the bench with the score tied 39-39. The Lakers outscored the Kings 18-9 the rest of the half and Sacramento never regained the lead. Hayes finished with six points, all in the second quarter.

NOTABLE: Lakers backup forward Devin Ebanks was inactive for the second straight game following his arrest Friday morning for driving under the influence. ... Lakers starting point guard Steve Blake suffered an abdominal strain in the first quarter and played sparingly the rest of the way, finishing with two points and four assists in 14 minutes. Blake's availability against the visiting Spurs on Tuesday is vital with Steve Nash out a few more weeks with a non-displaced fracture in his lower left leg. ... The Lakers had just five fastbreak points, compared to 19 for Sacramento.

UP NEXT: For the Lakers, Tuesday vs. Sacramento, Friday vs. Phoenix, Sunday vs. Houston. For the Kings, Tuesday vs. Portland, Friday vs. Atlanta, Sunday vs. Brooklyn.

• Kings: Honeycutt
• Lakers: Ebanks, Nash

• Kings: Smart
• Lakers: --

• Lead Changes: 7
• Times Tied: 7

• Arena: Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA
• Officials: #7 Kevin Fehr, #8 Marc Davis, #61 Courtney Kirkland
• Attendance: 18997
• Duration: 2:08