Lakers take their home opener against the Clippers in the Staples Center despite the Clipper's high expectations.
The Lakers bench is what fueled this 116-103 victory on Tuesday night. Xavier Henry.. that's right Xavier Henry had a game-high 22 points, which is also his career high. He did it on 8 of 13 shooting, while Jordan Farmar added 16 and six assists.
According to LA Times Coach Mike D'Antoni put a lineup on the floor at the start of the fourth quarter that consisted of Jordan Farmar, Jodie Meeks, Xavier Henry, Wesley Johnson, and Jordan Hill with the Lakers down four points. This lineup played the whole fourth to finish the game.
“That team heard for the last two months how good you’re going to be, how they’re not going to be good, how they’re not going to have Kobe,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said after the game. “You knew they were going to play like this was the world championship.”
NY Times reports that the Lakers' vice president for player personnel Jim Buss was very pleased with the performance. So pleased that he gave D'Antoni a nice big hug after the game.
“That was awesome, flat-out awesome,” Buss said. “It was really a pretty basketball team. The way the roster was pieced together, we started seeing something there in practice, in the preseason, that this is going to be fun, this is going to be good."