LA Lakers Lose Big and Lose Top Rookie
29 Oct, 2014
After Lakers rookie Julius Randle left his NBA debut strapped to a wheeled stretcher with a broken right leg, every player at Staples Center gained a sober perspective on the season opener.
Even ex-teammates Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard realized their shouting match was particularly inconsequential in the final minutes of the Houston Rockets’ blowout win.
James Harden scored 32 points, Howard added 13 points and 11 rebounds before getting into an exchange with Bryant, and the Rockets spoiled Bryant’s return to the Lakers with a 108-90 victory over Los Angeles on Tuesday night.
Bryant’s comeback game and the Lakers’ return from a 55-loss season went from bad to miserable when Randle broke his right leg in the fourth quarter. The seventh overall pick out of Kentucky collided with two Rockets under the basket and landed awkwardly, collapsing to the court in agony.
After his own Lakers debut ended somberly, coach Byron Scott described the scene as “heartbreaking.”
“The last three or four minutes, obviously we weren’t thinking a whole lot about basketball,” Scott added. “We were just thinking about Julius, and hoping he’s OK.”
Randle’s injury cast a pall over the night for the Lakers, who are banking on the 19-year-old power forward to become a solid player – perhaps their next star. His right leg was immobilized before his teammates lifted him onto the stretcher, obvious pain on his face, with Bryant squeezing his hand.
“We’ll help him through this, and he’ll come back a better basketball player,” Bryant said. “That’s the goal, is to try to find a silver lining in this. He’ll use the time to come back and be stronger.”
Bryant scored 19 points in his first game back at Staples Center after missing most of the Lakers’ worst season in a half-century with two major injuries.
A few moments before Randle’s injury, Howard and Bryant received matching technical fouls when Howard elbowed Bryant in the face after grabbing a rebound in the fourth quarter, setting off a lengthy stretch of shouting and finger-pointing between the former teammates.
Although teammates stepped between them, Bryant appeared to yell “Try me!” at Howard, who wore his usual broad grin while responding.
“There’s no need to go into it. We won the game,” Howard said. “It’s over with. It’s about basketball. I’m not even focused on it.”
“You can’t help but like him,” Bryant said with a straight face. “He’s a teddy bear. I really mean that. He’s a nice kid.”
Howard got a flagrant foul for the elbow, and Bryant got a personal foul in addition to their technicals. Both veterans were pulled from the blowout immediately afterward.
AP
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