Lakers Beat Hawks in Nick Young's Return

The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Atlanta Hawks in a well-balanced performance that featured Jeremy Lin, Kobe Bryant, Carlos Boozer, Jordan Hill and Nick Young all playing well.

"The 'Swagg effect,'" Nick Young called the impact of his return on the Los Angeles Lakers. "It just rubbed off on everybody tonight. It just felt good to be out there with those guys."

Young's first bucket was a three-pointer assisted by Kobe Bryant, and yes, Bryant passed him the ball. That play embodied Young's importance to the balance of this team and served as a reminder of how much the Lakers missed not having Young for the first 10 games of the season.

"It felt good to have him out there," Bryant told Mike Trudell on Time Warner Cable Sportsnet after the game. "The defense really has to pay attention to him."

Young would go on to finish with 17 points on 6-10 shooting in an impressive season debut that energized the Lakers to a 114-109 victory.

For LA, wins do not come easy, as the team started the 2014-15 season only winning once in its first 10 games. Against the Hawks, even the energized Lakers waited until the final seconds to secure the result. Overall, though, the team played well.

For the first half, the Lakers provided a glimpse into how good the team could be if everything went right: Jeremy Lin was perfect from the field and led the team in assists; Bryant was efficient with 19 points on only nine shots; Carlos Boozer added 18 points and seven rebounds; and Young provided a scoring spark with nine points off the bench.

At the half, the Lakers held a 15-point lead with three players in double figures and the team getting back in transition. It was a perfect half for the Lakers. In short, the Lakers looked good--a foreign phrase in Laker-Land these days.

Sadly, within three minutes of the second half, the Lakers had given up all but two points of their comfortable lead. The purple and gold erased one half of good with three minutes of bad.

From there on out, the Lakers clung to their sliver of a lead. The Hawks continued to threaten throughout the final two quarters, but the Lakers managed to maintain a slight lead throughout the second half. Paul Milsap was Atlanta's player of the game, as the Hawks' big man led all scorers with 29 points.

Not far behind, Bryant finished with 28 points--and became only the fourth player ever to score 32,000 points--on 18 shots to lead an impressive Lakers' offense that shot 54 percent on the night. Lin, Boozer and Jordan Hill all collected double-doubles. The Lakers' point guard only missed one shot en route to 15 points and 10 assists, Boozer finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds and Hill finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds.

Hill, who scored all 18 of his points in the second half, was key down the stretch on the boards and with put-backs. Hill and Bryant combined for 15 of the Lakers' final 23 points in a feel-good win.

The traveling Lakers will arrive in Houston late Tuesday night and will face Dwight Howard and the Rockets on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time.

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