Story Published:
Nov 20, 2009 at 12:42 PM PDT
Story Updated:
Nov 20, 2009 at 12:42 PM PDT
It was like he had never been away.
Pau Gasol, who sat out the Lakers first 11 games with a right hamstring injury, had 24 points and 13 rebounds Thursday to help the defending NBA champions defeat the Chicago Bulls, 108-93 at Staples Center.
Kobe Bryant scored 21 points to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the club’s career scoring list.
Ron Artest added 15 points for the Lakers, who finally had their full starting lineup intact for their ninth victory in 12 games to start the season. Although key reserve Luke Walton is out following back surgery, the Lakers finally can begin building team chemistry around Bryant and Gasol, the pillars of their title run last summer.
“Definitely, I missed it a lot,” Gasol. “It’s so much fun to play with our guys in front of our crowd. I really wasn’t expecting to be as effective as I was tonight, but my teammates found me a couple of times and made it easy.”
Gasol scored 10 of the Lakers’ first 13 points, moving easily on his injured leg while playing 34 minutes.
“It feels great. We have our squad now,” Bryant said. “Obviously, we can’t wait to get Luke back, but having Pau back is huge. We didn’t miss a beat, either. We have a bunch of guys that can post. We have the advantage.”
Bryant clearly took a back seat to Gasol early on in a 7-for-21 shooting night, but still added nine rebounds and eight assists. And two days after Bryant posted his 100th career 40-point game, he reached yet another milestone.
With a free throw in the third quarter, Bryant passed Abdul-Jabbar (24,276) for second place on the Lakers’ career scoring list, leaving him trailing only Jerry West (25,192).
With 7-footers Andrew Bynum and Gasol in a starting lineup described by Chicago coach Vinny Del Negro as “really, really long,” the champs had little trouble with the Bulls, opening a 20-point lead in the third quarter before beating them for the eighth time in nine meetings.
Derrick Rose had 20 points and John Salmons scored all 18 of his points in the first half for the Bulls, who lost on the second stop of a taxing six-game road trip.
“Their length is definitely their biggest strength,” Joakim Noah, who had 12 points and 15 rebounds, said. “To me, the most amazing thing about it is you’re out there competing hard, and these guys are hardly breaking a sweat because they’re so comfortable running their offense. They look like it’s very easy.”
Gasol played in just two preseason games before sitting down with a hamstring injury that didn’t appear to improve much with rest. He wondered aloud whether his hectic schedule over the past two years — including a summer with an NBA title run and a tournament MVP award at the European championships in Poland — had worn down his body.
Gasol tipped in Andrew Bynum’s missed layup on the Lakers’ first possession and hit two free throws the next time down. Gasol got the ball in the high post on the third possession and fed it to Bynum down low, illustrating the versatility of the triangle offense.
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