Kobe Bryant sauntered over to the scorer’s table with around six minutes left in the second quarter and waited to check into the game.
It felt ceremonial.
Because at that point the Los Angeles Lakers sure didn’t need his services. They were already comfortably ahead by 14, had knocked down seven 3-pointers and made 63 percent of their shots. They were rolling. Right then he was Mr. Icing on the Cake, Mr. Let’s Rub This In And Go Home, Mr. We’re Just Giving Him Some Extra Work.
Kobe flirted with a triple-double — in the first half. He put the remainder of those pieces together in the second to get that triple-double, the 21st of his career, and the Lakers knocked the Nuggets out late to get a 111-103 victory Tuesday night at the Pepsi Center.
“He just played a great all-around game,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “I’m not surprised because I’ve seen him do it many, many times.”
Somewhere, Magic Johnson was probably hating it.
The former Lakers’ star is on the Tank Train, and all Tuesday night did was pull the Nuggets down closer to the Lakers’ lottery level. The Lakers were dominant most of the night, building a 23-point lead mainly by barely missing from the 3-point line. The Lakers made 12 of their first 16 on their way to 14 makes on the evening.
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“Early on everybody else got in a rhythm,” Shaw said. “Wesley Johnson came out hitting shots. … We let them get into too much of a comfort level before we really tried to lock up and encroach on their space.”
But in the end they had to hold the Nuggets off to get the win.
The Nuggets chipped away all night long to rally from that 23-point hole. They had the bench to thank, in particular rookie center Jusuf Nurkic’s 16 points and eight rebounds, the best game of his young NBA career.
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He and Nate Robinson made most of the plays that mattered as the Nuggets pushed to get the lead in the fourth. The Nuggets began the period down by 12 but quickly chopped it to single digits. The Lakers answered to get the lead over 10.
But the Nurkic-Robinson duo wasn’t done.
They, and the bench, got the lead down to five points with 4:04 left to play. But the Lakers would not give any more ground. They secured just their 10th win of the season and snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Nuggets.
“We just started playing too late,” Nurkic said. “My game didn’t mean anything because we lost the game. Kobe did what he wanted to do.”
Bryant’s triple-double was 23 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.
Ty Lawson tied with Nurkic as the Nuggets’ leading scorers, with 16 points of his own. He added nine assists. Robinson had 13 points for the Nuggets, who have lost four of their past five games.
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
