Kobe Bryant poured in 33 points to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 108-94 National Basketball Association playoff victory over Houston on Friday, with Rockets center Yao Ming limping away on a sore left foot.
The victory gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference semi-final series.
Lamar Odom scored 16 points with 13 rebounds and reserve point guard Jordan Farmar had 12 points and seven assists standing in for suspended Derek Fisher, who had been tossed from game two for a hard foul on Houston’s Luis Scola.
PHOTO: AP
There was little sign of such rough play in game three until the Rockets’ Ron Artest was ejected for a hard foul on Pau Gasol in the final minute.
Artest was ejected from game two for a verbal altercation with Bryant following Bryant’s elbow to Artest’s upper chest.
“I don’t think that was a flagrant, maybe a flagrant one,” Bryant said of Artest’s ejection. “That rule is so all over the place, it’s hard to judge. I’m an ’80s baby, so that’s just two shots and let’s go.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
Prior to the incident, Artest had 25 points for Houston, while Yao scored 19 points with 14 rebounds to post his sixth straight double-double.
But the Rockets were held to just 14 points in the third quarter and Yao was clearly hurting in the fourth, favoring the foot that had already seen him sit out a practice session.
“I remember it hurting in the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter, one for each quarter,” said Yao, who left the game in the final minute. “There’s different twists, one for each time.”
That’s a big worry for the Rockets, who host game four today but saw their nine-game home winning streak broken.
Yao said he would test himself by running yesterday and promised to be ready on today.
“I really want to play,” he said. “When tomorrow’s test shows everything is all right, I’m going to play.”
Even if Yao is ready to go, Houston could find themselves without Artest, if the NBA decides his foul on Gasol merits a suspension.
“They told me that he hit [Gasol] in the head, which I guess that’s why they felt he had to be ejected,” Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. It was a bang-bang play, and sometimes in this league if you hit a guy in the wrong spot it can be a flagrant foul. Pau was going in pretty hard and it was just one of those things.”
The Rockets trailed 50-48 at halftime but missed 15 of their first 19 shots in the third.
“We had to get stops,” Bryant said. “In the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, we started to get stops and it sustained us.”
“We threw up a clunker,” Rockets forward Shane Battier said. “We just couldn’t find ways to score in the third period. They were in control most of the game.”
Bryant closed the third quarter with a three-pointer shot that gave the Lakers a 74-62 advantage.
“It was a big play for us. It finished the quarter off the right way,” he said.
“Each quarter, we had our problems,” Yao said. “In the first half, we had too many turnovers. In the third quarter, we just did not show up. We didn’t play well.”
■EASTERN CONFERENCE
AFP, ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Dwight Howard scored 17 points with 14 rebounds to lead shorthanded Orlando to a 117-96 victory over reigning champions Boston on Friday in their NBA playoff series.
Rashard Lewis scored 28 points and Hedo Turkoglu chipped in 24 for the Magic, who played without suspended point guard Rafer Alston but still edged ahead 2-1 in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final series.
The NBA suspended Alston for one game for smacking Eddie House in the back of the head in game two.
Paul Pierce shook off his series scoring woes with 27 and Rajon Rondo added 15 for the Celtics, who narrowed a 20-point deficit to seven but couldn’t get closer.
“You give them their inside game and their outside game, then you don’t have a chance,” Pierce said.
It wasn’t the first time Orlando showed they could win without a key starter.
Howard missed game six of their first-round series against Philadelphia after elbowing Samuel Dalembert, but the Magic still eliminated the 76ers in a rout.
In Alston’s absence, defensive player of the year Howard did all he could to fill the void.
Howard had four blocks in the first half. On the first play of the second quarter he denied Stephon Marbury’s layup, leaping high enough to balance himself with one hand on the backboard.
“Just the whole team stepped up the defensive intensity,” Howard said. “It starts with me. I have to do that every night if we want to be successful.”
His offensive performance included a massive double-fisted dunk and Orlando had taken a 20-point lead early in the third period before Howard picked up his fourth foul.
Boston responded with a 12-2 scoring run to end the third and had whittled the defcit to seven in the fourth when Kendrick Perkins was called for a flagrant one foul for an elbow on Mickael Pietrus.
Pietrus made the free throws and the Magic went on to put the game out of reach.
“Our defense was awful. They made every shot,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers, whose team must regroup now for game four in Orlando today. “I thought they were the aggressors and we were the retaliators all night.”
Magic coach Stan Van Gundy cautioned that his team couldn’t afford to become complacent.
“This is not the time of year to celebrate a win in the playoffs, especially against a team like Boston,” van Gundy said.
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