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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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 GAME FLOW
ATLANTA (AP) -- Watch out Minnesota. Shaquille O'Neal is looking
to make up for an off night.
Kobe Bryant scored 30 points to make up for a poor shooting
night by the foul-plagued O'Neal and give the Los Angeles Lakers a
95-88 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night.
|  | | Lakers guard Derek Fisher strips the ball from Atlanta's Isaiah Rider. |
"I'll just have to get back on track tomorrow," O'Neal said.
"I don't like to have two bad games in a row."
The Lakers, who have won four straight and 11 of 12, are at
Minnesota on Friday night.
"I haven't had one of these nights in a long time, so it was
due," O'Neal said.
O'Neal, the NBA's leading scorer, was limited to 28 minutes by
foul trouble and finished with nine points. He shot 4-of-15 from
the field and 1-of-5 from the foul line.
"Everything seemed to be a foul, whatever he did," Lakers
coach Phil Jackson said. "One thing led to another, and
ultimately, he wasn't even given a chance to play the last part of
the game."
Isaiah Rider led the Hawks with 33 points -- his seventh 30-point
game -- before a crowd of 19,463, Atlanta's first sellout at the new
Philips Arena.
"We definitely wanted to make a statement tonight and wanted to
do better than we obviously did," Rider said. "We came up short
against a good team. They had a better night and we played really
sluggish."
Bryant, who missed the first 15 games of the season with a
broken hand, scored five of his points during a Los Angeles 15-3
run in a three-minute span, taking the Lakers from a 59-55 lead
with 3:54 left in the third period to a 74-58 margin with 55
seconds remaining.
"Kobe picked up the scoring slack," Jackson said. "And, we
were able to play a pretty good third quarter."
The nine points were O'Neal's second lowest scoring output of
the season. He scored six points against Houston on Nov. 10 after
getting ejected in the second quarter for fighting with Charles
Barkley.
Glen Rice added 11 points for the Lakers and Derek Fisher had 10.
Alan Henderson had 13 points for the Hawks and Dikembe Mutombo
had 11 points and 11 rebounds for Atlanta, which lost for the third
time in four games.
The Lakers took a 50-45 halftime lead as Bryant scored 17
points. O'Neal was 3-of-11 from the field and 1-of-5 from the free
throw line in the opening half and but 1-of-4 in field goal
attempts in the second half.
Rider had 15 of his points in the opening half and Henderson had
10.
Game notes
Mutombo was coming off a 27-point, 29-rebound (tops in the
NBA this season) effort in Tuesday night's 105-94 victory over
Minnesota. ... The Lakers beat the Hawks 93-88 on Nov. 14 in Los
Angeles in their only previous meeting this season... Bryant has
played nine games since coming back, starting the last five. With
Bryant back, Ron Harper has taken over as point guard, sending Fisher to the bench.
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ALSO SEE
NBA Scoreboard
LA Lakers Clubhouse
Atlanta Clubhouse
RECAPS
Washington 108
New Jersey 104
LA Lakers 95
Atlanta 88
Milwaukee 96
Miami 95
New York 100
Dallas 93
Denver 116
Sacramento 106
Portland 107
Seattle 81
Detroit 116
Golden State 108
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