Big Laker Rally Is a Rush Job

The Lakers’ victory ended on Kareem Rush’s three-pointer and the fans here pelting three referees with ice and popcorn and, some time later, the general manager’s wife, near tears, slamming her purse to the floor.

A game carried by Kobe Bryant and a late, Laker-friendly call ended in the hands of rookie Luke Walton, who flung a pass to Rush, who made the 26-footer that beat the Denver Nuggets, 112-111, Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center.

Rush’s three-pointer fell from the left wing with 3.2 seconds left, and the Lakers had run down a 13-point deficit in a little more than seven minutes, for their fifth consecutive victory, the Sacramento Kings in town tonight.

Afterward, Coach Phil Jackson gathered his players, riddled by the altitude and an end-to-end game that concluded with a chummy group hug, and put to them, “Do you think you deserved to win that ballgame?”

Jackson said, “They whole-heartedly agreed they deserved to win, which I was not surprised about.”

They had won with 35 points from Bryant and a referee’s error that, from the perspective of the Nuggets and the sellout crowd, was at least as responsible for the outcome as the Lakers’ 35 fourth-quarter points.

At the conclusion of their fourth consecutive loss, many Nuggets, including Coach Jeff Bzdelik, stood at halfcourt, their hands on their hips, raking referees Michael Henderson, Jess Kersey and Jack Nies with insults. Bzdelik was restrained by an assistant coach. Marcus Camby followed them across the floor and to the mouth of a tunnel, where, protected by security guards, they disappeared into a hail of debris.

“We played so hard tonight,” Carmelo Anthony, who matched Bryant’s 35 points, said with a sigh.

The Lakers, down seven points with 1:27 remaining, scored the final eight points. At 111-104, Nuggets, Bryant made a 28-foot three-pointer to bring the Lakers within four. Walton then stole the ball from Andre Miller on the left wing and beat Miller to the other rim, scoring on a layup that made it 111-109, inside a minute.

Walton grinned. “In my mind,” he said, laughing, “I’m thinking about what kind of dunk I’m going to do. I also could have made the safer layup. That’s what I went with.”

On the Nuggets’ next possession, Shaquille O’Neal blocked Anthony’s point-blank shot out of bounds, setting up an inbounds play with 29 seconds left, two on the shot clock. Miller took a pass from Anthony on the baseline, turned and, from 15 feet, hit the near rim as the 24-second buzzer sounded. Anthony took the rebound.

Henderson, the referee, appeared to blow his whistle first. After some discussion, the crew announced the whistle was inadvertent, but that the Nuggets’ possession would not stand, and there would be a center-court jump ball.

It was not a popular local decision, even before O’Neal won the jump over Nene. Gary Payton dribbled into the frontcourt, passed to Bryant, and the arena went still as Bryant, having made 14 of 26 shots, the game clock a second ahead of the shot clock, pushed toward the basket and ... passed back to a surprised Payton. Payton penetrated and found Walton, who penetrated and, with five seconds remaining, caught sight of Rush.

As superstars Bryant and O’Neal and Payton watched from near the basket, as a four-game winning streak built on the mediocre and the poor hung in the balance, Rush let go of the biggest shot of his short professional career.

“I was thinking in my mind, these guys might be doubled,” Rush said. “The opportunity might come.”

He turned slightly to the left, as he does on his jump shot, so he could look over his left shoulder, and made the shot.

“We had it cleared for Kobe, but everybody was over there,” Walton said. “Then they collapsed on me, left my man Kareem Rush wide open for three. It wasn’t like I wasn’t confident he’d make that shot.”

So went the Laker season, Bryant greeted behind the scorer’s table at game time by a handful of young men in mock prison orange, Bryant’s name and number on the front. Generally, the crowd was a bit kinder than Bryant’s last trip through, perhaps softened by the news Bryant might someday consider playing here.

Earlier in the day, Jackson had scanned the Laker horizon, the contract talks and Bryant’s legal issues having darkened the basketball they play.

“There’s always thunderheads on the horizon,” Jackson admitted. “But we look at it like, ‘Hey, it’s rain and it’s great for the crops.’ ”