The second game of NBA opening night was a replay of last season play-off matchup between the LA Lakers and the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers had to play without Kobe Bryant who had a knee operation in July and is not yet ready to play at this level.
Without Kobe, it looked like LA had no chance to win against the high-scoring Suns team.
The first quarter seemed to confirm this assumption because the Suns cruised to a 26-41 lead while playing their trademark fast break basketball.
But then the Lakers started to get some stops and they also scored some baskets and the Suns started panicking and kept panicking throughout the rest of the game. The final score was 114 - 106 for the Lakers.
Before the game, Bryant said on TNT that he had confidence in his team because they were all very talented players who would step up when needed. and he was right.
The 19 year old Andrew Bynum scored 18 points in his first ever start in an NBA game and Lamar Odom confirmed his talent with a 34 point outburst. On top of that, he grabbed 13 rebounds.
Meanwhile, they also won their second game of the season.
The Laker team is really good and will get better once Bryant rejoins the team IF Bryant keeps recognizing the talent in his teammates and starts playing less selfishly. If this is the case, they can get far in the play-offs and maybe even play the conference finals.
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