A game ago against Dallas, Derek and Co. surrendered a big lead to the Dallas Mavericks, only to pull out a win.
This time out, the Lakers weren’t so lucky.
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| Derek hits a layup v. Philly (Getty Images). |
Derek scored nine points and added four rebounds and five assists, but Andre Igoudola’s last second three-pointer left it all for naught. The Sixers shocked the Staples Center faithful into a stunned silence with a 94-93 win over LA on Tuesday night.
Before Iguodala’s heartbreaker, No. 2 came up big in several crucial situations as the game teetered back and forth.
Coming out of the locker room, the Lakers pulled ahead, D-Fish sinking a triple to answer a game-tying bucket by Andre Miller. The three gave LA a 57-54 lead and touched off a 19-8 Laker run.
But it wasn’t a big enough cushion and LA succumbed to only their 14th loss of the year.
CATCHING A BREAK
The Lakers remain eight games ahead of the Spurs with 15 games to play and barring a collapse of epic proportions, will lock up the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference in the next few weeks.
That might mean a little R&R for some of LA’s top players as Phil Jackson told ESPN.com’s J.A. Adande:
“We’re going to push hard,” Jackson said. “But if things look like we need more rest than we do wins, I’ll have to figure that out. Because we’re playing Pau
[Gasol] a lot of minutes and [Derek Fisher] and Kobe [Bryant].”The bad news is, the Cavaliers edged ahead in the fight for home court throughout with a win over Orlando last night. So the time off may be limited.
NEXT UP
The Lakers finish off their three game homestand on Thursday night when they host the Golden State Warriors. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 PST and all the action can be seen live, nationwide on TNT.RELATED STORIES
76ers at Lakers Play by Play (NBA.com, March 17, 2009)
http://www.nba.com/games/20090317/PHILAL/playbyplay.html
Trouble follows the Lakers home (LA Times, March 18, 2009)
http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakers-sixers18-2009mar18,0,5223398.story?track=rss
Lesson not learned: Lakers done in by Andre’s giant buzzer-beater (LA Daily News, March 18, 2009)
http://www.dailynews.com/ci_11937799?source=rss
Daily Dime: LeBron bails out Cavs (ESPN.com, March 18, 2009)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-090318
