The 14-time champion of the NBA, Los Angeles Lakers, got to their best record in a beginning of season since 1985-86 with a 17-2 by beating the Milwaukee Bucks 105-92 on Sunday night at the Staples Center. The Lakers led the Bucks to a poor shooting of 38.0% from the field goal, and a 25% on the three point line. The defense was so aggressive over the first three quarters than even the two Bucks’ stars Michael Redd and Richard Jefferson could only scored two and three points respectively.

All the starters of the Lakers finished with double figures and on the contrary, for the Bucks none of its starters ended up with more than 7 points each. This is something not regularly seen in the NBA, but it did happen at the Staples Center on Sunday for the Bucks. However, even with Lakers playing an exceptional defense, they were not good handling the ball and making accurate decisions; they turned the ball 25 times compared to the 18 turnovers from the Bucks. For its part, the Bucks besides shooting poorly, missed too many easy layups and had a sloppy game.

In the first quarter the Lakers jumped aggressively over the Bucks, ending that quarter with a lead of 8 points and by half time they were up 12 points. For the third quarter things kept positively similar for the Lakers extending the lead to 20 points. On the four quarter, Phil Jackson decided to leave Kobe, Bynum and Odom on the floor for four and half minutes when the lead was of 21 points. Jackson made the substitutions thinking the lead will be kept, but the poor decision making of the Lakers gave the Bucks and option to take 7 points off at the end. One of the surprising substitutions made by Phil Jackson was the Chinese rookie player Sun Yue, who made his debut on an NBA game scoring 4 points.

The best scorers for the Lakers were Kobe Bryant with 20 points and 8 assists, Derek Fisher with 19 points and 5 steals and finally Bynum with 14 points. For the Bucks the bench was the one that ended with the double figures, Joe Alexander finished with 15 points, Luc Mbah a Moute added 14 points and finally Charlie Villanueva contributed with 12 points.

This became the victory number 17 of the Lakers on the season, which is a great accomplishment, Phil Jackson expressed his team is working hard and is improving each game, especially in defense, even so, they need to get better in some game situations and decision making at the end of the games.

"I thought our defense was exceptional for the first three quarters. We kept Jefferson and Redd really quiet tonight. But we need to keep the defense the whole game and do less turnovers,” expressed the LA Lakers coach.

The next LA Lakers game is on Tuesday 9th against the Sacramento Kings at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento. The Kings are currently on 12th place of the Western Conference with a record of 5-16. Sacramento is coming from a lost against the Denver Nuggets 118-85 and will want to get a victory against the Lakers. The Lakers for its part, will like to add another win and maintain a good record to remain at the top of the Western Conference.

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