|
|
 |
 |
|
| |
GAME DAY PREVIEW Game time: 10:30pm ET LA Lakers at Sacramento | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Regular-season records
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Ticker) -- With their aura of invincibility slightly diminished, the mighty Los Angeles Lakers hope to re-establish themselves as the team to beat for the NBA title and knock out the Sacramento Kings in Game 4 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series. After looking every bit the champions to be in Games One and Two at the Staples Center, the top-seeded Lakers looked out of sync in front of the raucous crowd at Arco Arena on Sunday. Chris Webber had 29 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists for the Kings, who finally got a big effort from their reserves. "Bench Mob" members Predrag Stojakovic and Tony Delk combined to score 19 of their 30 points in the fourth quarter when the Kings put the Lakers on ice.
"Our bench obviously wasn't as productive theirs," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "They had a great lift off the bench from Delk and Stojakovic; both of them gave them a great bump. The energy from the crowd kept the team playing." "I couldn't be more proud of our team," Kings coach Rick Adelman said. "With some of the things that were said about last game, I knew that we were gonna come out and really compete (Sunday). We didn't know if that was gonna be enough but it was and so now we live for another day." Kobe Bryant scored 35 points and Shaquille O'Neal added 21 and 17 rebounds for the Lakers, who were outscored 33-20 in the fourth quarter and denied their first playoff series sweep in nine years. The Kings have not advanced beyond the first round since 1981 when they were in Kansas City.
| ALSO SEE NBA Scoreboard LA Lakers Clubhouse Sacramento Clubhouse PREVIEWS Portland @ Minnesota
LA Lakers @
  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||