Lakers end Cavs' home streak to close wild trip
CLEVELAND (AP) — They lost their starting center to injury and traded a versatile forward. They beat the NBA champions and ended the league's longest home winning streak while their superstar battled the flu.
The Los Angeles Lakers had a road trip they won't soon forget.
Lamar Odom scored a season-high 28 points, picking up the slack for a shivering and sick Kobe Bryant, and the Lakers won their sixth straight game to finish up a difficult-but-memorable 11-day journey with a 101-91 win over Cleveland on Sunday.
The Lakers headed home as the first road team to beat the Cavaliers this season.
Odom scored 15 points during a pivotal third quarter, Bryant finished with 19 and Paul Gasol added 18 for the Lakers, whose six-game odyssey seemed doomed when center Andrew Bynum went down with a knee injury in the second game on Jan. 31 in Memphis.
But Bryant scored 61 in the Lakers' next game at New York, Los Angeles outlasted the Boston Celtics in overtime and then handled the Cavaliers despite Bryant being saddled with a bug so bad that he needed intravenous fluids at halftime and afterward.