NBA Tuesday: Lakers walk out of Brooklyn with win

But those were obvious problems. The bigger issue for the Nets is that they made some critical less-obvious mistakes throughout the game.

By now, it’s obvious to anyone that Bryant has a step on Wallace. Proper help defense calls for the big man to slide over right away to prevent penetration, ESPECIALLY if the man driving is a scorer like Bryant. Instead, look how long it takes for Humphries to even attempt to cut off the lane.

Sanders was protecting the paint against slashing Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried when the two collided, sending Sanders backward to land directly on his back. The fall looked incredibly scary, and caused the him to stay on the ground for several minutes:

He finished with 12 points on 6-of-11 from the field and added seven rebounds and five blocked shots. Milwaukee missed his inside presence for the remainder of the game as they ended up falling to the Nuggets on the road. Denver took advantage of Sanders’ absence by dominating the paint by a margin of 20-6 and shooting 60 percent in the fourth quarter.

Yes, Danilo, they loved it for the tacos, but they would have loved it either way. I think.

The Bucks failed to feed Dalembert down the stretch, and it may very well have been their undoing. Typing that sentence-- in 2013, mind you, though such a performance has never been within Dalembert’s range-- damn near made my computer freeze. If he’d cracked 40, the Pepsi Center would have had to be declared a toxic waste site, unfit for human occupation.

Dalembert’s previous career-high for points was his 27-point outing as a Sacramento King back in 2011, and he played just under 39 minutes in that one. Tonight’s performance was an anomaly of epic, cosmic proportions.

Gasol’s injury is especially troubling given the circumstances and the Lakers’ 23-26 record. Losing him long-term would be a devastating blow to their playoff chances.

“I don’t want to be optimistic or pessimistic. So I’ll see what happens tomorrow and what the doc tells me in Boston,” he added. “And then like I said, we’ll go from there.”

Houston had plenty of time to make history, but Mark Jackson’s Warriors would have none of it. First they watched the Rockets -- clearly gunning for the record -- miss a couple of eager heaves while the crowd rained down chants of “ONE MORE THREE!”

Well trolled, Coach Jackson. Good to see you’ve still got some pride down 30-plus points.

The Rockets tied an NBA record by making 23 shots from beyond the arc, and used them to win convincingly. If three-pointers started the rout for the Houston (27-23), outstanding defense in the fourth quarter sealed the win as they held the Warriors (30-18) to just 23 points.

The Warriors had a strong performance on the offensive end, shooting 47.7 percent from the field, but shot just 3-of-15 from the arc.

The Nets (28-20) used a strong third quarter to get back in the game after falling as many as 13 points behind. They held Los Angeles to just 36.4 percent from the field and 1-of-4 from the three-point line during that stretch.

But Los Angeles came on strong in the fourth, and put the Nets away for good with solid defense and by scoring the final 10 points of the game in the last two minutes.

UPDATE: Gasol’s injury is indeed a plantar fascia strain. He will have an MRI Wednesday in Boston.

Oh...oh my.

“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SNAH LOOKIH HUAHHHHHHH”

Just unadulterated glee. And why didn’t Buckner just go take the pins down himself? “I played football. I’ve taken my hits.” Fair enough.

L.A. is still living dangerously, including a 98-97 win over Detroit on Sunday, but they’ve won 5 of their last 6 games with Kobe averaging more than 10 assists a night in that span.

Battle Of The Big Men

Things seemed fine when Paul was first hurt, as the Clippers won three in a row and Paul returned to action, but since he reaggravated his knee bruise, a team whose bench strength was touted previously has looked hapless.

Orlando only had two healthy guards, and those two guards were E’Twaun Moore and Ish Smith. It showed, as they lost their tenth straight. The 76ers’ first quarter was the only one by either team in which 20 points were scored.