Lakers Get a Rebound in Detroit

It was, apparently, only a 24-hour Laker contagion, cured and forgotten with a wink and a thank you to the kind and errant souls of the Detroit Pistons.

The Lakers on Friday regained their balance, reset their defensive energy and resumed the march toward bigger and better things.

A short day after the Washington Wizards ended their 19-game winning streak, the Lakers throttled the high-scoring Pistons, 110-82, shutting down Grant Hill and Jerry Stackhouse and stopping most thoughts of a potential Laker letdown.

“You don’t want to let too many get away from you like it did last night,” said forward Glen Rice, who had his second consecutive strong performance, scoring 19 points on eight-for-12 shooting.

“Tonight we came out and we tried to make a statement: OK, hey, we had a good streak going and in no way are we going to have too much slippage after a loss.

“We wanted to show that this team is ready. We’ve got a lot of character, we’ve matured a great deal and we wanted to come in and bounce back and we did so.”

They bounced back mostly by bouncing the Piston offense, averaging 104 points a game, into total submission.

Hill and Stackhouse, who average more than 50 points a game combined, scored 30 combined and managed to make only nine of 28 shots together.

All told, the Pistons shot 35.3% from the field (30 for 85) and made do with a parade of fall-away jumpers and off-balance runners.

“We were giving up 104 points the last four games,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “And this team, I told them I don’t expect you perhaps to keep them under 100 points.

“But defense has to be our mainstay, that’s what we win on and that’s how we do it. And we got that idea back.”

With the defense limiting the Pistons strictly to jumpers--and cutting off Detroit’s fastbreak game completely (Detroit had only five fastbreak points)--all the Lakers needed was a decent offensive performance, and that was no problem against the Pistons.

In the previous two games, O’Neal posted the Lakers’ first consecutive 40-point efforts since Jerry West did it in 1970.

In this one, O’Neal cruised to a 35-point night, making five of seven free throws before former Piston John Salley replaced him for good with 6:47 left in the game.

“We still came out kind of slow, but we picked the game up, picked our defense up,” O’Neal said. “They really didn’t hit that many shots, and we controlled the boards and played at our pace.

“You know, they wanted to get that run-and-gun type game, but we slowed it down.”

Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant had his own personal bounce-back, following Thursday’s season-low seven points with 25 points, eight rebounds and six assists, and Rice was finding open spaces and the bottom of the net.

“He was really active today,” Jackson said of Rice. “It was a game I just saw he was stimulated, and he looked like he got going early. And a lot of times Glen finds his way into the game and this time he found the game to his liking early.”

Said Rice: “I’m just going out there and I’m focused. Trying to do the things I know I can do. And just trying to keep my mind free . . .

“I’m planning on staying in that zone. A lot of times when I miss a couple, I start thinking about it too much. I’m just trying to get back to the basics. Go out there, play hard, if the shot goes in, it goes in.”

The Lakers, with marquee games left against New York and Miami on Sunday and Monday to finish this five-game trip, raised their NBA-best record to 54-12 and increased their Western Conference lead over the idle Portland Trail Blazers to 4 1/2 games.

And it added to one of the most impressive statistics of this very impressive Laker season--they are 18-1 in the second part of back-to-back games; the rest of the league is under .500 in those contests.

Now, they are 1-0 in games that follow the ending of 19-game winning streaks.

“It was important for us,” Jackson said. “It gave us a little breathing room. It assured us of the fact that last night was last night. We put it behind us.”

Said Bryant: “I think it was important for us to have a win like we had today. Sort of grinding it out again, and going into New York on that type of note. It’s good to have a nice win like this.”

*

DENVER 114, CLIPPERS 87

McDyess is embarrassed by coach with an early benching, then he takes it out on the Clippers. D4

TONIGHT

Sacramento vs. Clippers

Staples Center

7:30

Fox Sp. Net 2

RIDER GONE

Isaiah Rider was released by Atlanta after he refused to accept a three-game suspension. D4

KOBE BACK

Kobe Bryant learned something after his worst game of the season. D4