I'LL BE HORN-SWOG-GLED

Staples Center score last evening
was: Lakers 96 and Clippers 91.
Both L.A. teams competed to win.
Both share the same home court
building and both walk the same
halls for their lockers.
There was fierce scrambling for
that basketball during the 48
minutes play time.
Kobe Bryant made 24 points with
Pau Gasol close on his heals scoring
23 points and 10 rebounds.
Andrew Bynum had 10 points.
Metta World Peace got into a
little scruffy few moments but
teammates came to the rescue.
No punches thrown and no technical
fouls were whistled. However, with
such fierce competition, around the
basket, it appeared slaps and shoves,
smacks in the back or chest, & each
team seemed to vie for any advantage.
McRoberts had 2 technical fouls and
was ejected. All during the game,
Coach Mike Brown made it very clear
that this was a "Must win" game.
The Lakers did get a real boost
from Goudelock in the first half
of the game. His contributions were
3 pointer baskets.
Our Lakers did claim one more award,
that being MVF. Seems we have gone
above and beyond the New York Knicks.
A value of $900 million was proclaimed,
with a 40% increase over last year
thanks in part to the new televised
20 year contract made with Time Warner.
In contrast, The Knicks were second
in value at $750 million, a 19% increase.
The Clippers, who led the Lakers in the
standings going into Wednesday's game
at Staples Center, were 20th in the
30-team league at $324 million, a
6% increase from last year. Overall,
the average value of NBA teams rose
to $393 million, up 6.5%.
Time Warner will be starting 2 new
channels for 2012-13. One carrying
the Lakers games in English and
one channel carrying it in Spanish.
The Lakers cable reach is the largest
in the NBA according to Time Warners'
source, Forbes, with 271,000 house-
holds tuning in to Fox Sports West
last season. Our challenge comes for
these next two games as we play back
to back away from home. We play
Milwaukee on Saturday and Minnesota
on Sunday. Both games will be played
earlier than our usual games on
local KCAL-TV channel 9.
Another tidbit: As Hillary Rodham
Clinton has now depicted Kareem-Abdul
Jabbar (former Laker) to become an
advocate for the young people, titled
"Global Cultural Ambassador", he will
travel the world to engage young people
to help promote diplomacy. It is with
this in mind, anybody may bring his
or her caption idea into play. Just
send it in to: captionthis@free press.com
and Sunday the best caption will be
printed in daily newspapers. Good luck!
Babs Wells