It would have been a much prettier victory had the Lakers played the New York Knicks at home three weeks ago. Today’s Knicks are hardly the bruisers of yesteryear, and it often appears as though Isiah Thomas rates coaching his team a distant third priority behind office poon and gourmet popcorn. But these last few weeks have been tough on the Lakers, with Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza out for 8 weeks each, resulting in a steady slip from #1 in the western conference to three and a half games back after losing 4 of their last 5, making last night’s contest a little tougher than it should have been.

Offensively, the team had a decent night with Lamar Odom and Sasha Vujacic racking up 20+ points apiece and Kobe hovering near triple-double land with 24 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds. However, due to some lackadaisical D, the Lakers found themselves down by 9 in the fourth. It was then that Vujacic came to and went on a 29 point tear, hitting 12 out of his 20 points in the last couple minutes, resulting in a 120-109 win. Now the Lakers head out on a nine game road trip starting tomorrow with back to back games against the chain-wielding methheads of Detroit and the cartoonish and not as frightening Toronto Raptors the day after.

Photo by Alexik via Flickr