It’s usually Kobe Bryant who comes out saving the team from a loss, but the Laker bench did the job tonight by picking up the pieces Kobe couldn’t carry in a big Martin Luther King Day victory against their 2009 NBA Finals opponent the Orlando Magic 98-92 in front of a capacity Staples Center crowd. The win is huge because it’s the final home game for the Lakers in the month of January as they embark on an 8-game road schedule in 12 nights starting in Cleveland.

*Sports Agent Gary Uberstine was extremely influential throughout this coaching search. Uberstine is the agent for Pete Carroll, Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian and Ed Orgeron. He was also indirectly involved in the Jack Del Rio negotiations even though he doesn’t directly represent him. Once negotiations broke down with Del Rio Monday evening, Uberstine and his coaching clientele were USC’s fall back option.

Lamar Odom said it best during his interview with KCAL-9’s John Ireland right before he headed for the locker room. He said that the Lakers’ struggles are all in their heads. Their inability to focus for long periods of time is the major reason why they’ve been hobbling for months now.

Scott Wolf and ESPN both reporting Lane Kiffin (and his wife Layla, both pictured above) will return to Southern California so that Lane can assume the role of USC’s next head coach.

Let us be honest and face facts: The first decade of the 21st century was a mediocre one for the UCLA Bruins football program.

Being a loyal alumnus and a dedicated member of Bruin Nation, that was a difficult thing to say. But it’s also the truth.

In the early hours of January 5, 2010, the Angels family suffered another loss with the passing of veteran announcer Rory Markas. Known to Angels fans for closing out every Angels’ win with “Just another Halos victory” and forever associated with the team for his call at the end of Game 7 of the 2002 World Series “Here’s the pitch to Lofton. Fly ball centerfield. Erstad says he’s got it . . . Erstad makes the catch! The Anaheim Angels are the champions of baseball!”

The Lakers (28-7) were supposed to be the landlords of Staples Center, but they played every bit of the tenant roll tonight against their cross-hall rivals the Los Angeles Clippers (16-18) in a 102-91 upset. The Clips snapped a 9-game losing streak to the purple and gold and have won their third straight at home since the 2006-07 season. The Lakers failed to win their 5th game in a row and drops their road record to 8-4.

The book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis came out in 2003 about the Oakland Athletics and GM Billy Bean trying to win with a smaller budget. The primary focus at the time was pitching and on-base-percentage. And we saw this on the field with pitchers such as Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, and Tim Hudson. And currently with hitters like Jack Cust. However, it now seems as though the price of pitching has shot up with pitchers like John Lackey, and A.J. Burnett (Maybe #2 pitchers at best) getting $85 million. Also, the medium average, big power, poor defensive players like Adam Dunn, and Jason Bay seem to still be taking advantage of a down economy.

I don’t know what speech Phil Jackson gave his bench after that first quarter timeout, but he has to give it to them again because the darn thing worked. And I mean worked! Jordan Farmar led the “bench mob” with a career-high 24 points, and the bench scores a season-high 66 points en route to an old-fashioned shellacking of the second best team in the West the Dallas Mavericks (23-11) by 35 points 131-96.

Today it was announced by USC athletic director Mike Garrett that the Trojans would self-impose sanctions resulting from NCAA infraction violations stemming from former coach Tim Floyd’s illegal payments to a USC booster that had ties to former Trojan OJ Mayo.

When you are accustomed to watching USC win Pac-10 championships and Rose Bowls, anything short of that is a disappointment. By those lofty standards, the 2009 season was a disappointment (and hopefully just a down year). When talking about an upcoming season for the USC Trojans, you will hear the words “Rose Bowl” and “National Championship” along with it. It is a sign of where USC football is and where it expects to be. That alone tells you that in the college football world, the high standards at USC are the exception, not the rule.

With the unofficial decade coming to an end, a close look should be given to the Dodgers’ work. After all, it’s not every day that ownership changes, a team that hadn’t won a playoff series in 20 years sweeps the NLDS in consecutive years, and the team achieves a staggering amount of attention, from injuries to trades to steroids to divorce.

If this game is the first of a back-to-back, I’d hate to see what will happen tomorrow. The suddenly erratic Lakers (24-6) drops their second of their last three games to the smaller Phoenix Suns (20-12) 118-103 in a game that eerily resembles their performance in another road loss against the Jazz.

During yesterday’s practice, Kobe Bryant iterated that tonight’s matchup with the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder (13-14) will be a tough game for the reason that it is a home game. He was right. The Thunder were pretty much in control of the game in the first half leading by 5 after the first quarter and 7 going into halftime 61-54. But the Lakers (23-4) rallied in the third outscoring Oklahoma City by 13 points leading to their league-high 5th win a row in front of a bewildered Staples Center crowd.

KDOC was having technical issues for the majority of the game but for those of us die-hards who refuse to believe the game isn’t showing we got the game finally toward the end of the 2nd period. The first 2 periods were an apparent wash, the Ducks were down 2-0 and a shutout looked imminent but then came the 3rd period. Actually not even that. Then came the last half of the 3rd period and something happened. The Ducks got 1 through…. then they got another one through. In a span lasting less than 8 minutes (7:34 if you want to be precise), the Ducks got 4 goals and absolutely stole the 2 points that were almost certain to go to Colorado.