MILWAUKEE – Drew Gooden scored 23 points and grabbed eight rebounds Saturday as a short-handed Milwaukee handed the Los Angeles Lakers yet another road defeat in the lockout-shortened NBA season.
The Bucks, missing injured center Andrew Bogut of Australia and suspended Stephen Jackson, held off Kobe Bryant and the Lakers 100-89.
Milwaukee nabbed their fourth victory in six games, while the Lakers fell to 1-7 in away games.
“I don’t know if it’s adversity, but a short season, not having any practice time is the biggest challenge,” Bryant said.
“We have a lot of guys we need to get on the same page. We have so much youth, particularly coming off the bench. We’ve got to shorten that learning curve.”
Bryant finished with 27 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
The NBA’s top scorer worked to get his teammates involved in the first half, taking just four shots and scoring seven points with six assists, but the Lakers couldn’t match the Bucks’ offensive flow.
“We executed well offensively,” said Bucks coach Scott Skiles. “We had some great sequences of ball movement again.”
As the Lakers sought to erase a 51-43 halftime deficit, Bryant became more aggressive in the third quarter.
In the fourth he surpassed Jerry West’s Lakers record for most career free throws of 7,160, finishing the game with 7,163.
But Carlos Delfino, Shaun Livingston and, late in the game Luc Richard Mbah a Moute did a good job defensively on Bryant, who failed by three baskets to equal Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Lakers record for career field goals.
“We did as good a job on their key guys as we could,” Skiles said. “I thought we were outstanding on Kobe and he almost had a triple-double.”
The Bucks limited Pau Gasol to 12 points on 6-of-18 shooting and Andrew Bynum to 15 points.
“I thought we held our own,” Skiles added.
First-year Lakers coach Mike Brown said he hoped his players “don’t need the home crowd to get us juiced, to play the right way”.
Bryant said the cure to the Lakers’ ills is simple.
“We’re a blue-collar team, and we’ve got to bring that effort every single night,” he said.