Lakers’ dominance at home continues with 103-92 win over Portland

Strange team, the Lakers.

The same group that trailed Phoenix by 27 points on Sunday came back to beat Portland with relative ease a day later, 103-92, at Staples Center.

The Lakers’ demeanor couldn’t be any different in front of a friendly crowd, their record now 14-2 when they’re not the visitors.

Kobe Bryant had 28 points, Andrew Bynum had 14 points and 19 rebounds, and the Lakers tried to sneak past their latest controversy after Bryant called out team management Sunday for leaving Pau Gasol dangling in the trade winds.

“After that terrible loss, we just came out and played free,” Bynum said. “That’s what happens when we play free.”

The Lakers (19-13) also hammered another nail into the trend of home-and-away games against the Trail Blazers. They’re lousy in Portland (2-10 since 2005) but dominant over the Trail Blazers at Staples Center, winning for the 11th time in 13 games.

The Trail Blazers (16-16) were so bad in the beginning that reporters started reaching for record books to see whether their seven-point first quarter was historic.

It wasn’t. The Lakers held Dallas to two points in a quarter in an April 1997 game.

The Lakers led by 30 and were still up at halftime, 52-30, before the Trail Blazers’ sharp second-half shooting brought them within 10 in the fourth quarter. They came no closer.

Bryant made 13 of 26 shots on the night and wasn’t as careless with the ball as in Phoenix the previous night. Gasol had 16 points to go with 12 rebounds, though he made only five of 13 shots.

Steve Blake had 17 points, the most he ever scored with the Lakers.

Metta World Peace had only six points but held Portland forward Gerald Wallace to seven points on two-for-seven shooting.

Wait a second

Lakers Coach Mike Brown said he had already been taking steps to decrease the length of practices and shootarounds, questioning a protest by Bynum about the topic.

“At the beginning of the season, we had some long [shootarounds]…more than two hours at times,” Brown said Monday. “But [Sunday], Andrew sat out more than half of the shootaround. We went and walked through their plays…and about four or five of our plays, got some shots up and then basically left.”

Bynum was annoyed after Sunday’s loss that the Lakers spent too much time on the court at a shootaround earlier in the day, saying he would have preferred to rest.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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