Kobe On Top But Lakers Let One Slip Away

Coming off an emotionally charged and well played win over Boston the day before, the Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Memphis Grizzlies in the final contest of their 8-game road trip, 95-93 at FedEx Forum. With his 29th point coming in the third quarter, Kobe Bryant (44 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists) became the all-time, leading scorer in Lakers history, surpassing the logo himself, Jerry West. “[West] taught me so much when I was 17 years old. He showed me a lot about the game, the jump shot and spin moves and all the others.” “Even though it’s me passing him in the record books, it’s still us, and it’s still Magic and all the other great players.” Kobe scored the record passing basket on a breakaway dunk off a Jordan Farmar feed. But unfortunately for the Lakers, Kobe got very little support as the Grizzlies improved to 26-21 overall (18-6 at home). Ron Artest (18 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists) continued his string of good games but missed the game-winning 3-point attempt as time ran out. Kobe, normally the go-to player in such cases, was smothered by the Grizzlies defense and was forced to pass the ball as Artest was able to unleash his potential game winner relatively unguarded.
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Former Grizzly, Pau Gasol, (10 points on 4-7, 9 rebounds, 2 assists) and Andrew Bynum (5 points on 1-3, 8 rebounds, 1 steal) could not get their hands on the ball enough as the Lakers relied primarily on a perimeter-oriented offense. Lamar Odom (4 points on 2-9, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals) could not generate any offense as the entire team contributed only 49 points compared to Kobe’s 44 points. Memphis was led by Rudy Gay (25 points, 4 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 assist) and former Clippers Zach Randolph (22 points, 17 rebounds). Younger sibling, Marc Gasol (11 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocked shots) easily outplayed the Lakers bigs, making life difficult whenever either Andrew or Pau ventured into the lane. The exhausted Lakers have little time to rest and recuperate as they take on the Charlotte Bobcats on Wednesday and the Denver Nuggets on Friday.