POSTGAME QUOTES



Mike D'Antoni:

On coaching tonight's game:
“It was a great game. They played well, shots were going down on both sides and we had to come from behind. Guys picked it up defensively and we got a win. So that was a great win for us.”

On what allowed them to come back:
“Defense and we just stayed after them. Kobe [Bryant] and Dwight [Howard] were able to play with five fouls each for about almost the whole quarter. Dwight [played] for the whole [fourth] quarter and almost the whole overtime. But a lot of little keys: Metta [World Peace] played great, Steve [Nash] makes a world of difference on offense and Dwight did a great job catching and hitting shooters on the side.”

On this game being a great team effort:
“We hadn’t had many wins and that’s how it’s got to be. It doesn’t matter that Kobe took 41 shots, it doesn’t matter. If you take them in the right spots then everybody will get their touches and chances [when] the ball moves like it did today. There’s a lot of things that we need to correct. We can get a lot better.”

On Steve Nash's performance:
“I asked him ‘Are you okay?’ He said ‘Yeah, great.’ So he just keeps on going 40 minutes after not playing for like seven weeks. He’s unbelievable and down the stretch he made some great plays.”

On the difference that he made in the game:
“I think that we’re a completely different team with him out there. He’s done that his whole career so it’s not really that much of a surprise. He’ll even get better and he’ll get used to the guys. I thought that Pau [Gasol] made some great passes down there so we’ve got a couple of playmakers we can go through and we’ve got guys that can make shots.”

On how he decided who to rotate throughout the game:
“When they all play well you can’t hardly make a mistake. That’s what they’ve got to do. They’ve got to keep from making mistakes. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I do know that we have a bunch of guys that, most of the time will go with how we want to stop. That’s kind of the team that I envision, but there will be other chances for other people.”

On Steve Nash's last shot:
“That doesn’t surprise me. If it wasn’t him he would have kicked it to someone else. The guys a winner that’s about all you can say.”

On the mental lift Nash gives the team:
“The guys know that they’re going to get it, it’s a lot different. The floor opens up and it changes everything. All of the perspective of playing. We didn’t play defense first although they’re good offensively and they’re not easy to guard, but we need to tighten up and get better. But it’s a good first step and we’ve got a long ways to go.”

On any soreness:
“There’s some soreness and some pain but right now it’s okay. It’s manageable. As long as it’s manageable I’ll just keep going.”

On playing through bad spurts:
“They were making threes and getting baskets in transition. I think we had a few turnovers. I think we just got in a rut there and that’s going to happen. It’s a game of runs, but for us, it’s about being solid, the little things, winning the hustle plays, getting back in transition. If we do that, I think our offense will score enough points and our defense will get enough stops, but if we don’t get back in transition or win the rebound battle or the loose ball battle then it won’t matter how much talent we have.”

On playing 40 miutes tonight:
“I got through it. It was only my third day of basketball in seven-plus weeks, so it was a lot, but I didn’t feel too bad.”

On building of tonight's comeback:
“We need it. We need to build every day. We need something to build on. You can’t build on anything without hard work and perseverance. There was a stretch there where the lead could have gotten to 20 for them, but we hung in there and kept it, at times, just keeping it at 13 was important. It allowed us to creep back in at the end of the game.”

On playing hard:
“We played hard. That’s the thing we talked about during our time off. Dwight [Howard] had four or five fouls at the time. Pau [Gasol] had four or five fouls. I had four or five fouls. We weren’t playing particularly well. I wasn’t shooting the ball well. We just said that we had to go harder. It didn’t matter what the challenge was. We just had to go harder and that’s exactly what we did.”

On Steve Nash's contribution:
“He orchestrated things. He got us in some sets and in actions and that’s exactly what a great point guard is supposed to do. He lined us up and saw things that were executing well for us and he went to them. You saw being a lot more organized tonight.”

On the team's colletive effort:
“We moved the ball extremely well. Everybody contributed, everybody played hard. That’s a good dilemma to have. For us as a team, we just want to be unselfish and whoever is playing well stays in and plays and I think guys accept that. [Devin] Ebanks has been playing very for us and he didn’t get in tonight and the same thing with Antawn [Jamison]. We have a lot of guys who can step in and contribute.”

On the fourth quarter:
“They started making shots and we didn’t take care of the basketball. You look back and realize that one defensive rebound, one well executed defensive trip, one less turnover and we are out of here before overtime. It’s disappointing the way the fourth quarter went, but Kobe Bryant has a history of making good shots – he did that tonight.”

On the pace of the game in the second half:
“We made some mistakes, they made some mistakes. You are going to make mistakes as a basketball team. They started making shots. They hit some big three’s and they executed their offense which made it difficult to run off of made shots – that made a difference. I told the guys, waiting to talk with them and they show Steve Nash on television and he was asked ‘What do you guys need to do?’ Steve Nash said ‘We need to play with the spirit that the Warriors play with. They’re unselfish and play for one another’. I’m not going to lose sight of that. We are going to be fine. We will learn from our mistakes made tonight because that is a good team despite their record. I like where we are heading.”

On Jarrett Jack:
“He’s been great all year long. He comes in and has a calming effect when he runs our offense. He’s a scoring threat and he makes plays – been great all year long. Credit again to our ownership and front office by doing a great job of finding what we needed. He’s everything that we thought he would be when we traded for him.”

On motivating Fesus Ezeli:
“He wasn’t happy with a couple of plays for himself individually down the stretch, I just shared with him a moment I had my rookie year worse than that. The NBA has a bunch ups and downs. You have to stay on the straight and narrow and put the last game behind and move forward.”

On what he learned from this game:
“We are definitely not a team into moral victories. We come out and feel like we can win every game when we step in between those lines. We just learned that if you mess around and allow a team like them, who has tremendous firepower and who’s not at their best yet - they’re far from a finished product hang around; these are the type of results that can possibly happen. I thought in the second half we got a little careless with our shot selection, but whatever the case may be we still had opportunities on the defensive end to close them out as well.”

On closing out games:
“I think that was the first time we lost when we had the lead heading into the fourth quarter. We’ve had situations where we had big leads and had to hold on for dear life, but we still got it done. Then we had games where we let go of the lead and finished it out. We’re just a team who had veterans and hall of fame guys that figured it out in the last five minutes, so we have to learn from this.”

LAKERS-WARRIORS PREVIEW

By NICOLINO DIBENEDETTO

Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers have capitalized on a favorable schedule in an effort to begin turning around a rough start.

A visit to Oakland should begin to make things a bit more difficult.

Bryant will try to lift the Lakers to a season-high fourth straight win Saturday night when they face the surging Golden State Warriors, one of the NBA's biggest surprises so far.

Bryant leads the league with 29.5 points per game, but Los Angeles (12-14) has struggled to take advantage of his staggering production.

The Lakers were 1-11 when he'd scored at least 30 points until recently, but the 14-time All-Star has reached that mark in each of the last three games - all wins. However, they've all come against teams with losing records, including league-worst Washington in a 102-96 victory Dec. 14.

Los Angeles exploited another struggling opponent Tuesday, when Bryant scored 30 points in a 101-100 win over Charlotte - which hasn't won since beating the Wizards on Nov. 24.

"We're playing much better," said Bryant, who needs one more 30-point game to be the fifth player in league history to amass 400. "The last three games, we've been playing much better. We're moving the ball a lot better and playing with a lot better energy.

"We've had a lot of ups and downs. Now, things are starting to stabilize a little bit for us."

Things are also going to get tougher against the Warriors (18-9), winners of eight of 10, before Los Angeles returns home to face Atlantic Division-leading New York on Christmas Day. The Lakers fell 116-107 to the Knicks on Dec. 13 in their last loss.

Having Pau Gasol and Steve Nash fully healthy should give them a much better chance of extending this run. Gasol returned against the Bobcats after an eight-game absence due to knee tendinitis, scoring 10 points with nine rebounds, five assists and four blocks.

Nash was originally targeting Saturday to play for the first time since Halloween, but it's more likely that he'll return from a non-displaced fracture in his leg on Christmas.

Getting Nash back will certainly put Mike D'Antoni in the holiday spirit.

"Whatever day he returns will be Christmas," said D'Antoni, who is 7-9 since replacing the fired Mike Brown.

The Lakers have won 17 of the past 18 games with Golden State, including an 8-1 record at Oracle Arena.

Bryant has averaged 33.3 points in the past six meetings, and he had 27 with nine rebounds and seven assists Nov. 9 in a 101-77 romp as Los Angeles beat the Warriors for the fifth straight time.

Gasol had 14 points and 16 boards in that meeting, and has averaged 23.2 and 11.8 over his last 18 games against Golden State.

He figures to have his hands full battling David Lee, who is averaging 24.1 points and 11.8 rebounds over the past 11 games.

"You can pencil in 20 and 10, and then sprinkle in some other stuff around the tree," coach Mark Jackson said. "He's been that good all year long."

Lee's versatility produced his third triple-double Friday, as he had 23 points, 11 boards and 11 assists to power a 115-100 win over Charlotte.

Stephen Curry scored 27 points while connecting on 8 of 13 from beyond the arc after putting up a season-high 32 in a 131-127 loss at Sacramento two days earlier.

Curry had 18 points against the Lakers last month, while Lee was held to 10 and 12 rebounds.

SEASON & SERIES NOTES; CONNECTIONS
The Lakers currently lead the season series with Golden State 1-0, after sweeping last season’s series with Golden State 4-0, their fifth series sweep against the Warriors in the last seven seasons. The Lakers have not lost a season series to Golden State since they were defeated 2-3 over five games during the 1994-95 season. The Lakers and Warriors have met 302 times in the regular season during the Los Angeles Era with the Lakers leading the all-time series 194-108. Including their time in Minneapolis, the Lakers and Warriors have met a total of 393 times with the Lakers holding a 245-148 all-time series advantage. The Lakers are 31-4 in their last 35 games against Golden State but had their 12-game win streak against the Warriors snapped in their last meeting of the 2010-11 season (4/6/11 at ORACLE Arena (87-95)). At STAPLES Center, the Lakers are 25-2 alltime against the Warriors. On the road, the Lakers have gone 8-2 against the Warriors in their last 10 games at ORACLE Arena. In 59 career games including 50 starts against the Warriors, Kobe Bryant is averaging 27.3 points per game with a high game of 51 points, his 3rd highest average among all teams behind Charlotte (29.2) and Toronto (27.9). The 1,612 points Bryant has scored against Golden State is the highest total among all opponents he has faced. Antawn Jamison was acquired in a draft night trade by the Warriors after being selected by Toronto with the fourth overall pick in the 1998 NBA Draft in exchange for Vince Carter. Jamison played his first five seasons in Golden State, averaging 20.1 points and 7.5 rebounds in 336 games. Warriors guard Klay Thompson, who played his prep basketball locally at Santa Margarita HS in Orange County and was selected by Golden State with the 11th overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, is the son of former Lakers forward/center and current radio color analyst Mychal Thompson.

LAST REGULAR SEASON MEETING
In their first game under interim head coach Bernie Bickerstaff, the Lakers outscored the Warriors 49-33 in the second and third quarters combined, led by as many as 28 points in the fourth quarter and defeated Golden State 101-77 at STAPLES Center. Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 27 points (10-18 FG), nine rebounds and a game-high seven assists. Pau Gasol (14 points, game-high 16 rebounds), Jordan Hill (14 points (5-5 FG), 4 rebounds), Metta World Peace (10 points, 7 rebounds) and Darius Morris (career-highs in points (10), rebounds (5) and assists (5)) all scored in double-figures as the Lakers outrebounded the Warriors by 11, outscored them in second chance points by 13 and held Golden State to just 7-of-25 shooting from behind the arc on the night. Stephen Curry led Golden State with 18 points and a team-high five assists. Klay Thompson (15 points) and David Lee (10 pionts, team-high 12 rebounds) were the only other Warriors in double-figures in the loss.