LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The new-look Los Angeles Lakers launched the National Basketball Association season with an 89-78 victory over Denver, superstar Kobe Bryant sharing the accolades with several new teammates including center Chris Mihm.
Bryant led the Lakers with 25 points, while Mihm, acquired in the trade that sent Gary Payton to Boston, scored a career-high 23 points with 12 rebounds.
Mihm is one of several big men charged by the Lakers with helping fill the yawning hole left by the trade of center Shaquille O'Neal to the Miami Heat.
First indications looked promising as Mihm scored nine points in the first six minutes and 19 in the first half.
Bryant said he wasn't surprised by his new teammate's performance.
"He has been playing extremely well since the first day of training camp," Bryant said. "He's very aggressive. He doesn't back down from anything."
Bryant himself shot only 5-of-14 from the floor, but made 14 of his 15 free throw attempts, pulled down four rebounds and added seven assists.
Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said Bryant's offensive contribution was even more important than the numbers indicated.
"He generated a heck of a lot of offense," Tomjanovich said. "Sometimes it's the hockey assist - he threw the first pass to someone who got the ball to someone else."
That's just the kind of play pre-season pundits have said Bryant will have to exhibit if he is to lead the Lakers to a championship in the absence of O'Neal, with some predicting Bryant would be too enamored of his own scoring statistics to keep his teammates sufficiently involved.
Bryant made an oblique jab at those predictions when it was pointed out he led the team in assists on Tuesday.
"Wow, like I've never done that before," he deadpanned. "I've led the team in assists every year. It's just that no one talked about it before."
Bryant also came up big on the defensive end with three blocked shots.
"I thought our defense was just excellent," Tomjanovich said. "That's what we need to be a running team. You know, we didn't have a real good shooting game, but we had guys playing hard.
"I thought the play of the game was what we call a turnaround play," Tomjanovich said. "When it looks like they're going in for a lay-up and we don't give up on the play, and Kobe ran that play down and made a block on it. One of the best plays I've ever seen."
"It was fun," Bryant said. "We had a blast, especially defensively. We had a great time defending and helping each other out."
The Lakers led 50-31 at halftime and never trailed. They stretched the lead to 23 points early in the third before the Nuggets narrowed the gap to 10 with a 17-4 run that included seven points from Voshon Lenard, who then injured his ankle.
Carmelo Anthony scored 20 points and Kenyon Martin added 13 for Denver, but the Nuggets shot only 30-of-88 from the floor.
"We have a standard," Tomjanovich said. "If we can keep people under 42 percent (shooting), we'll be one of the best defensive teams in the league.
"And to have this down in the 30s was just great."
Mihm, despite his own big game, said the opening night of the season was too soon to get carried away.
"It's a good start," he said. "We've got 81 more games in the regular season."
11/03/2004 - 08:43 GMT - AFP