The Los Angeles Lakers seem to be running out of gas on offense as their longest road trip of the season winds down.
They've rarely had trouble piling up points against the Toronto Raptors.
The Lakers go for an eighth win in nine tries against the Raptors on Sunday in the final stop of a six-game trip.
A night after needing overtime to beat Boston 88-87, Los Angeles (15-12) got off to a listless start against New York on Friday. The Lakers shot 34.2 percent in the first half with Kobe Bryant contributing 10 points on 1-for-6 shooting.
Bryant, the league's scoring leader at 29.4 points per game, finished with 34 but was outplayed by Jeremy Lin in a 92-85 loss. Lin's 38 points helped drop Los Angeles to 4-10 on the road.
The Lakers are at 24.4 percent from 3-point range during the road trip, including 2 for 12 by Steve Blake in the past two games after he missed 13 with a rib injury.
Although the Raptors have regularly been run over by the Lakers, they're playing much better defense this season. They're allowing an average of 93.7 points - 11.7 less than a year ago.
Toronto's defense blanketed Boston early on Friday, limiting the Celtics to 14 first-quarter points in a wire-to-wire 86-74 victory to snap a three-game losing streak.
Building on the victory could be difficult, though, as the Raptors have won back-to-back games on only two occasions this season.
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