With 18th triple-double of his career, Kobe Bryant led the Los Angeles Lakers to a 119-108 win over the Houston Rockets.
Bryant scored 22 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out 11 assists. Bryant, who also had three steals, helped the team register their fourth victory in five games after coach Mike Brown's departure.
"We're just picking apart the defense," the Associated Press reported Bryant as saying. "We're putting the defense in predicaments where they have to choose, and we're making them pay."
Dwight Howard top scored with 28 points and 13 rebounds, whereas Pau Gasol added 17 points. Gasol also completed 15,000 career points.
The new coach Mike D'Antoni has not taken charge of any game for the Lakers so far. Interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff played the role of a coach as D'Antoni decided to give more rest to his knee to recover from surgery.
Bickerstaff has ensured the team learns D'Antoni's style. The Lakers are playing as per his playbook and it has borne fruit.
"Every day, there's a little more," Bickerstaff said of the new system. "It's best to do a few things well and get it down, because all of those things, they have options off them."
For the Rockets, Chandler Parsons top scored with 24 points, whereas James Harden added 20 points and seven assists.
Parsons admitted the team are missing coach Kevin McHale. "It's tough, man. That's our leader," Parsons said. "We can't do much except pray for his family and him, and hope he comes back soon.
"We love playing for him. But at the same time, coach Sampson has done a good job. We have the same offense, same system, same principles on defense. So it's not like we're a different team. We still need to be playing a lot better, so there's no excuse."
The Lakers were leading 68-60 at the half time. They again outscored the Rockets in the third quarter 30-27. In the fourth quarter, the Rockets fought back and tied the fourth quarter score 21-21, but it was too little too late.
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