The Los Angeles Lakers owned the fourth quarter against the Denver Nuggets, Wednesday night. Now they have a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals. Kobe changed his approach for the game and dared the Nuggets to double team him. With Kobe luring double coverage then passing to his teammates, the Lakers owned the fourth quarter in a 103-94 victory.
"It was a big gamble for me coming in, but I wanted to change my approach this game and be more of a decoy," Kobe said after the game, "The past couple games they really were loading to my side and I figured I could be a decoy and try to give chances to my teammates."
Kobe scored an efficient 22 points (he took just 13 shots) and added 8 assists, several of them out of double-teams in the fourth quarter. Lamar Odom had 19 points and 14 rebounds despite an aching lower back and Pau Gasol added 14 points and 10 rebounds as the Lakers' front court finally showed up to play and took the pressure off of Kobe.
Game 6 is Friday in Denver, where the Lakers lost Game 4 by 19 points. Melo led the Nuggets Wednesday night with 31 points, hitting 12 of 13 free throws, while Chauncey Billups and K-Mart each added 12 a piece.
The teams were tied after the first, second and third quarters for just the fourth time in NBA playoff history. So it all came down to the final 12 minutes of the game. The trio of Kobe, Odom and Pau teamed for all but seven of the Lakers' 27 points in the fourth. They opened on an 11-0 run for their first lead of the second half and it was capped by a jumper from Shannon Brown that beat the shot clock. The Nuggets came storming back and used a 13-6 run to close it to 93-89 as Linas Kleiza scored 7 straight and Melo added 6 in the run. But then the Lakers regained control and finished off the victory. They improved to 20-0 in Game 5's at home when a series is tied 2-2.
Melo hit a jumper to get Denver to 96-91 with 1:24 remaining. But the Nuggets went cold from the field over the final 3:38, and the Lakers capitalized at the line. Los Angeles outscored Denver 10-5 in that span, including making six of eight free throws. This time, it was Denver coach George Karl's turn to complain about the officiating, after Lakers coach Phil Jackson and his organization were fined $25,000 each for griping after Game 4 about the officiating."I thought they got the benefit of the whistle," Karl said. "Every player in my locker room is frustrated, from guards to big guys. Gasol goes after at least 20 jump shots, 20 shots to the rim and gets one foul; our big guys have 16. Nene has six fouls, three or four of them don't exist."
Denver returns home needing a victory to send the series back to Los Angeles for a Game 7 on Sunday. However, history is on the Lakers' side. They haven't lost a best-of-7 series that was tied 2-2 after winning Game 5 since the 1969 NBA finals against Boston.
Peace and Much Love To Ya :)
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