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Bryant, Lakers beat Jazz, continue impressive start

Nov 5, 2007 - 7:05 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Maybe Kobe Bryant should change his mind about leaving the Los Angeles Lakers.

Bryant scored 33 points and Derek Fisher chipped in 19 as the Lakers pulled off a 119-109 victory over the Utah Jazz on Sunday night.

Bryant, who shot 13-of-19 from the field, has been involved in on-again, off-again trade rumors since the summer when he said he wanted to be moved because off the Lakers' failure to field a competitive squad.

"We just try to stay away from that, and let management and Kobe deal with their issues and stay together," Lakers guard Jordan Farmar said. "We enjoy each other, we really do. We like playing with each other so we want to stay together as much as possible. He's on board, he's playing the right way and it's a lot of fun."

But Los Angeles has played well so far this campaign.

It was the second impressive triumph for the Lakers, who came away with a 119-98 win over the Phoenix Suns on the road in their previous outing. Both Utah and Phoenix made the playoffs a season ago.

"We are taking it one day at a time, one game at a time," Bryant said. "We understand that it is a long season and we played well tonight and what we have to do is get some rest, get our bodies healed back up and get back to practice."

A second-year guard, Farmar came alive in third quarter, scoring five of his 12 points during a 7-0 burst as the Lakers grabbed an 88-82 edge with 10:44 left.

Deron Williams helped slice Utah's deficit to 92-89 with his jumper at the 8:22 mark. But Los Angeles pulled away for good behind an 11-4 run, capped by Andrew Bynum's three-point play with 4:56 remaining.

Bynum finished with 15 points and nine boards in 19 minutes off the bench. The 20-year-old big man was mentioned in trade rumors involving teammate Lamar Odom and Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal this summer.

"What it is I think is that we bring energy off the bench sometimes," Bynum said. "It is something (Farmar) along with (Ronny) Turiaf. Sometimes a good amount of energy will change the games outcome."

Luke Walton and Ronny Turiaf poured in 10 points apiece for Los Angeles, which shot a blistering 55 percent (43-of-77) from the field and overcame 18 turnovers.

Williams scored 26 points and Carlos Boozer registered 23 and 12 rebounds for the Jazz, who were outscored, 38-27, in the final quarter.

"They over powered us physically," Boozer said. "Sometimes we just go mixed up a little bit be we have to do a better job of clamping down on them. There team is very good offensively so we have to do a better job defensively in order to slow them down."

"We looked tired out there. And you can't do that when you play back-to-back," Williams said. "It's part of the NBA scheduling. Sometimes you have to play three games in four nights. This was a good test for us and we need to improve ourselves in that aspect."