Preview: Gasol, Lakers Visit Hawks

The Lakers look to extend their winning streak to 4 games tonight as they head to Atlanta.

LA is coming off a 105-90 victory over New Jersey. Pau Gasol made his Laker debut, scoring 24 points, the most scored in a Laker debut since Magic Johnson, and grabbing 12 rebounds.

“He played extremely well,” Bryant said of Gasol. “Defenses are used to playing a certain way. You know, screen-and-roll, where I come off the pick, they’re used to playing a certain way. Now they have to evaluate how they play that. It’s going to be a little bit more for defenses to kind of try to come up with a scheme.”

Despite Bryant having his lowest point total since 1998, the Lakers improved to 3-1 on their 9 game road trip.

Derek Fisher matched a season-high with 28 points, making 9 of his 18 field goal attempts. Fisher is now averaging roughly 13 points on the season for LA.

Despite scoring only 6 points, Bryant dished out 8 dimes and seemed to work well with the newly acquired Pau Gasol. “I still don’t know a lot of the wrinkles and a lot of details, but my teammates helped me out a lot on it through the whole game,” Gasol said. “I was pretty comfortable.”

The previous time the Lakers and Hawks met, Kobe Bryant scored 27 points - but it was his 4th quarter performance which helped guide the Lakers to victory. Bryant scored 11 of his 27 points in the final period en route to a 90-83 victory.

“To me individually it doesn’t mean much at this stage of my career; I’ve played in so many of those individual battles,” Bryant said. “It’s more just, ‘What can I do to help us win the game?’

“A couple years ago I probably would have tried to end up with 25 points in the fourth quarter. Now it’s not what’s important. Once I got on a roll, saw they were double and triple-teaming, I was able to use myself as a decoy.”

Bryant is averaging roughly 32 points over his 6 career starts in Atlanta.

Nets Starting 5:

Injury Report:
Speedy Claxton: Left Knee - Out

Lakers Starting 5:

Injury Report:
Trevor Ariza: Broken Foot - Out
Andrew Bynum: Left Patella Subluxation - Out
Chris Mihm: Right Ankle Bursitis - Out
Luke Walton: Right Hip Pointer - Day to Day