Lakers Beat Wolves to Reverse Road Fortunes

The Los Angeles Lakers reversed their recent road fortunes with a victory at Minnesota, holding off the tenacious Timberwolves for a 106-101 NBA triumph.

Kobe Bryant scored 35 points and Pau Gasol added 28 as the Lakers also ended a team-record streak of 13 straight games of less than 100 points.

Bryant set a Lakers record in the second quarter when he made his 9,936th career field goal, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar atop the club career list.

He finished by making 14 of his 29 attempts from the floor and has a career total of 9,946 field goals.

The Lakers superstar, however, was more pleased to get a rare road victory, just the team's second in nine away games in this lockout-shortened season.

"Hopefully we can take this and learn from it," said Bryant, who thought the Lakers played better than they did in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night.

"The thing for us is, we've got to play with a sense of urgency. We've got to play physical every night. Our big guys tonight were very physical. Last night I felt they let the Bucks push them around a little down low. Tonight they came back and responded."

However, the Lakers still have plenty of things to work on after seeing an 18-point third-quarter lead evaporate.

Minnesota edged ahead late in the fourth, but the Lakers held on as Bryant and Gasol played the entire second half.

"We just executed pretty well," Bryant said of the Lakers' response to the Timberwolves' late surge.

However, he was concerned that the Timberwolves out-rebounded the Lakers 52-41 -- and dominated 24-7 in offensive rebounds.

"They really beat us up on the offensive glass," Bryant said. "They just pounded us inside and we didn't stand up to the challenge."