Blount Out for More Than Playing Time

To the theory that Corie Blount just wanted playing time came an addition Sunday.

He wanted blood.

Clearly motivated to be playing his former team, Blount replaced Elden Campbell as the starting power forward as Robert Horry missed his second consecutive game because of a strained abdominal muscle and got a season-high 13 rebounds and a career-high seven assists along with seven points and two blocked shots in 34 minutes. It came as the Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 112-87, at the Great Western Forum, a big victory, albeit not big enough for some people.

“I told the guys in the third period, ‘We can beat ‘em by 50,’ ” Blount said later. “It didn’t work out that way. But I was hoping.

“I’ve been waiting for this chance ever since I got traded [in the summer of 1995], and today it happened. I went to bed early [Saturday night] and came focused and I knew that all I had to do was rebound. That’s all they asked me to do and I knew I could do that.”

Not so clear was whether he could also stop Chicago’s Dennis Rodman from doing the same. Rodman finished with a game-high 15 rebounds, six of which came on the offensive end, but that still meant Blount had played the best in the game to a virtual standoff in his first start of the season.