Lakers News: Russell Westbrook And Thomas Bryant's Special Connection
Your Los Angeles Lakers enjoyed perhaps their most complete game of the season last night in cruising to a wire-to-wire victory against the visiting San Antonio Spurs. The final margin was a convincing 123-92.
Behind a 30-point, 17-rebound performance from Anthony Davis, the Lakers actually put forth a pretty balanced attack. Seven L.A. players scored in double figures, including four bench players.
Sixth man Russell Westbrook, who finished with a 10-point, 10-assist double-double, was asked about his relative ease in finding reserve center Thomas Bryant, who has immediately usurped Wenyen Gabriel and Damian Jones as Anthony Davis's primary backup. Bryant finished with 15 points on 5-for-5 shooting from the floor, as well as nine rebounds, in just 22:59 of playing time.
Here's the relevant transcript:
"Just running. Any time I see my bigs and guys running I like to reward them. I can make the game easy for them. Especially guys like Thomas, Wenyen, whoever's on the floor. I take pride in making guys better around me and I'm happy to be able to see him come back and catch his rhythm and play well"
The bench duo's easy chemistry is exciting, in that it may open up the possibility of head coach Darvin Ham feeling comfortable employing all-bench lineups for Los Angeles, or at least bench-heavy lineups where stars Davis and LeBron James (who remained absent with a left adductor strain for the fourth straight contest) can sit.
In his two games thus far this season, the 6'10" Bryant has impressed. The 25-year-old big man out of Indiana University is currently averaging 11.5 points on a bonkers-and-unsustainable 81.8% field goal shooting, plus seven rebounds, across just 18 minutes of action.
The 6'9" Wenyen Gabriel, who had played mostly power forward prior to this season, took just one shot in his 16:05 of game time, but grabbed five boards.
