Lakers End Bitter Season on a Sour Note

ESPN.com: PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Soon after the season finale, Kobe Bryant was already ticking off the reasons for the Lakers’ dramatic slide this season.

His ankle injury, and the 14 games he missed. Head coach Rudy Tomjanovich’s resignation. Lamar Odom’s shoulder.

“It’s disappointing. It’s very disappointing,” Bryant said. “And it’s frustrating.”

Travis Outlaw’s layup with 7.1 seconds left kept the Lakers at bay, and the Portland Trail Blazers beat Los Angeles 106-103 Wednesday night in a matchup of two teams that will miss the postseason.

Bryant, who reached the NBA Finals last season before the Lakers were broken up and O’Neal was traded to Miami, his team with 37 points. But it was for naught as the Lakers lost their sixth straight.

“I’ve always been one to bounce back,” Bryant said. “That’s what I’m going to do — put the season behind us, but remember the pain and the frustration that came with it.”

The Blazers also relied heavily on rookies Ha Seung-Jin and Viktor Khryapa.

“If you looked around the building tonight you saw some of our future playing out there,” said Blazers interim coach Kevin Pritchard, the team’s director of player personnel.

“It had to be done and I promise it will pay huge dividends. When you consider that we beat the Lakers with Kobe Bryant playing big minutes, with a team that had Viktor, Ha, Sebastian, Travis — our young players — playing the bulk of the minutes in the fourth quarter, you have to feel good about next year,” he said.

Trailing 101-100, Ruben Patterson hit a pair of free throws and Ha made a hook shot to put the Blazers up 104-101 with 1:45 left. The score stayed there until Patterson fouled Bryant with 30 seconds left. Bryant hit both free throws to narrow it to 104-103.

Outlaw’s layup put Portland back in control, and the Lakers couldn’t do anything as the clock ran out. Patterson hurled the ball into the stands and stripped off his shirt in celebration of the win, but the Blazers aren’t going to the playoffs for the second straight season.

Bryant averaged 27.6 points a game, not good enough to overcome his team’s other shortcomings.

After the Lakers fell 126-99 at Golden State on Monday, interim coach Frank Hamblen canceled practice Tuesday, saying he didn’t know if there was anything else the team could work on.

“I don’t think we’d have been a team that would’ve won 50 games, if healthy. But if healthy, I think we could have competed for a playoff spot,” said Hamblen, who took over for Tomjanovich.

One of the worst seasons in Laker history has finally come to an end. A dismal loss for a team that had a season full of ups and downs. What was your take on the final game of the year? Sound off in the CL.com Forums!