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Odom, Bynum lead Lakers past Bulls

Nov 20, 2006 - 4:16 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Lamar Odom continues to step up when Los Angeles Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant struggles on the court.

Odom scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and Andrew Bynum outplayed Ben Wallace as the Lakers posted an 82-72 victory over the Chicago Bulls.

Bryant scored 18 points but was just 5-of-14 from the field. The eight-time All-Star had posted his best numbers of the season, when he tallied 31 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists in a 107-100 win over Toronto on Friday.

"Sometimes you have to win ugly and it take some experience to figure out how to do that, even though we're a young ballclub," Bryant said. "Chicago is going to force you to play that way, that's their style of play."

Odom was 8-of-17 from the field and Bynum had 12 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks for the Lakers, who have won three straight and are 6-1 at home this season.

"I just made plays," Odom said. "I was focused on catching the ball near the basket, getting to the free throw line. I'm shooting well from there. You get more confidence, driving, going to the basket and making guys foul you."

Bynum, in his second year out of high school, got the better of Wallace in every statistical category.

"It was a good game for us," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "I thought that perhaps the ball should go to Lamar more, but Andrew did a lot of good things ... covering up for guys that missed cutters, getting some blocks and rebounding the ball, that helped us out."

Wallace, a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, scored eight points, hauled in 12 rebounds and had two blocks.

"He (Bynum) played extremely well, but we have to stop this Andrew-Ben (Wallace) talk," Bryant said. "He's got a long way to go."

The Lakers shot 40 percent (28-of-70), including 6-of-16 from the arc.

Andres Nocioni scored a career-high 30 points and Luol Deng added 13 for Chicago, which has lost four straight and fell to 1-6 on the road.

"I think I played (a good) game but we lost and that's the bottom line," Nocioni said. "I was thinking about my shot because the last couple of games I played really bad with turnovers and missing shots. When I came here tonight I thought about my shot and playing hard."

"This was one of our best efforts in awhile," Bulls coach Scott Skiles said. "We really played hard, our defense was tight. Our ball movement was pretty good except for a couple of situations where we couldn't find the basket."