After a couple of weeks of aimless basketball, the Lakers Bench Mob finally caught fire tonight and outscored the Sacramento Bench 42-22 to provide the Lakers with their margin of victory, 122-104.

In the beginning, it looked like the Kings would run away with the game. Shooting 71 percent, they opened up a 12-point lead against the Lakers starters. But as quickly as it began, it quickly ended at the five-minute mark of the first quarter, and the Lakers were able to narrow the gap to 37-31 at the end of the quarter.
Then a most unusualy even occurred. The Lakers bench played a flawless second quarter. Not only did they cut into the Kings’ lead, they blew past the Kings and went into halftime with a huge 71-55 lead. Who Knew?

The starters returned for the third quarter and played the way the bench had been playing before this game. Maybe it was the idea that Andrew Bynum will be back very soon., perhaps as soon as Thursday against Denver. That may have reduced their focus somewhat.

In any case, the Kings were able to reduce the Lakers’ lead to ten points, 86-76, by the end of the third quarter.

Once again it was the Bench Mob to the rescue as they extended the Lakers lead to 22 points while Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher and Lamar Odom got to watch the action from the bench.

It wasn’t that the starters didn’t have their usual offensive punch. All the starters except for Derek Fisher were in double figures. Pau Gasol had a game-high 26 points along with 12 rebounds. Kobe Bryant had 22 with 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. Lamar Odom had another double-double scoring 15 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Trevor Ariza finished with 14 points.

However, It was the starters’ defense that was letting the Kings score at will, giving up 37 points in the first quarter alone. In a complete turnaround, the bench came in and stopped the Kings cold, holding the Kings’ subs to just 22 points while scoring 42 of their own.

Sasha Vujacic had 12 points, all in the fourth quarter that saw the Bench Mob pull away from the Kings for good. One of his field goals came on a dunk over two Kings’ defenders that made Kobe Bryant quip, “I’ve seen everything now. I’m ready to retire.”

Luke Walton had a season-high 11 points with an amazing 9 assists. Shannon Brown contributed nine points, seven in the Lakers’ second-quarter comeback. Josh Powell added six points and grabbed eight rebounds in just 21 minutes.

After the game, head coach Phil Jackson called starting center Andrew Bynum, recovering from a torn MCL, to let him know that he will be activated for Thursday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center.

Can you imagine the commotion that will erupt when public address announcer, Lawrence Tanter, calls out Bynum’s name? It just might cause an 8.3 on the Richter Scale. No doubt Laker fans across the nation will be thrilled.

I will have my thoughts on Bynum’s return in my next article.

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