Lakers Break Seven-Year Drought in Motor City

After seven years, the Lakers triumphed over the Detroit Pistons 92-77 last night at the Palace in Auburn Hills. The Lakers (57-14) beat the undermanned Pistons (34-37)  to stay within a game of Cleveland (58-13) for the best record in the league. The Lakers now need only one more victory or a loss by San Antonio (47-24) to have home-court advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs.Although they have appeared in six consecutive Eastern Conference finals, Detroit may not even make the playoffs this season.

With Kobe Byrant scoring an impressive 30 points and the Lakers playing well overall, it was a very different story than what has played out in Detroit in recent years. Veteran guard Derek Risher told the L.A. Times, “Finally, right?” expressing what all Lakers fans were thinking. Fisher had 15 points, five of them during the third-quarter run that began after former Lakers center Kwame Brown gave the Pistons a 55-50 lead with 6:42 left in the quarter. At this point Detroit was winning (despite the absence of three key players- Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton and Allen Iverson-all out due to injury) but the Lakers luckily overcame them. Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson begrudgingly accepted the win: “I have some Alzheimer’s and amnesia, but it’s not that bad yet. We know what we’ve done and we know the types of games we’ve lost here. We’re not going to take a whole lot from this game. We know they’re short-handed and we should win this game because of the talent we have.”

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