Lakers keep finding ways to make things worse

A team meeting didn't help stop the losing, and this season just keeps spinning away from the Lakers.

Darrell Arthur scored a season-high 20 points and Mike Conley added 19 as the Memphis Grizzlies beat Los Angeles 106-93 on Wednesday night, handing the Lakers their fourth straight loss and 10th in 12 games.

"I do think they play as hard as they can play, and that's what's scary," coach Mike D'Antoni said of his Lakers, who are now 2-10 in January. "I mean I don't know how we can play harder or blame something else. We just didn't play well."

Kobe Bryant said he felt comfortable with what he said in a team meeting before the morning shootaround. He said he doesn't know if his message to Dwight Howard got across. When asked if he hoped it did, Bryant simply answered with a seemingly sarcastic, "No". And Bryant said this season certainly is getting up there when asked if it was his toughest in the NBA.

"That Rudy T (Tomjanovich) one was a pretty hard one, too," Bryant said.

That was 2004-05, when the Lakers last missed the playoffs when Tomjanovich was coach part of a 34-48 season.

These Lakers are 17-25 after losing their seventh consecutive road game. D'Antoni had talked before the game about having an All-Star team with players not having learned their pecking order. Then Howard missed the second half after aggravating his sore shoulder just before halftime. D'Antoni said the center will be re-evaluated in Los Angeles.

Memphis got to celebrate a big win, a day after trading three reserves to Cleveland. That meant, even with the signing of D-League player Chris Johnson, Memphis only dressed 10 players before clinching the season series over the Lakers with one game left in Los Angeles on April 5.

"It was just a great team win," Memphis coach Lionel Hollins said.

Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen added 12 points apiece as Memphis improved to 12-0 when scoring at least 100 points. Randolph also grabbed 10 rebounds. The Grizzlies scored a season-high 60 points in the paint, compared to 34 for the Lakers with Howard out the second half.

Bryant scored 29 points for the Lakers, Metta World Peace added 15, Pau Gasol 13 and Earl Clark 11.

Los Angeles came in as the NBA's fifth-best scoring team, averaging 102.6 points. But it was the Grizzlies who were the hot-shooting team, topping 100 points for the first time since Jan 11 against the Spurs, and scoring their most since getting 113 against Sacramento on Jan 7.

Pau Gasol, coming off the bench again, believes defense remains the Lakers' biggest problem.

"We make these teams look a lot better offensively than they really are," the Lakers forward said. "That's something that's pretty negative. Pretty alarming."

(China Daily 01/25/2013 page24)