Lakers beat Wolves 90-79, Curry waived

The Timberwolves lost their 14th consecutive game to the Lakers Tuesday, 90-79 at Target Center.

The team announced during the game that they reached a buyout agreement with Eddy Curry and waived the veteran, oft-injured center by a midnight deadline that makes him eligible to sign with a team for the playoffs, if such an interested team exists.

Is there a market for a guy who's barely played the last three seasons. Curry and his agent must think, or know, so, otherwise why would they agree to a buyout rather than just make the Wolves waive him and pay off the rest of his $11.2 million (for which the Wolves have received $3 million from the Knicks)?

Anthony Randolph played nearly 14 minutes Tuesday -- included was a hanging alley-oop slam from Luke Ridnour, the kind of springy play you don't normally associate with the Wolves -- in an appearance that demonstrated why the team obtained him from New York last week.

Granted, he's skinny as can be, but he has the kind of reach and athleticism that didn't make him look all that out of place next to the Lakers' long, athletic frontcourt that includes Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom.

Now if the Wolves can just find another one or two bodies like that, with about 60 more pounds on them...

"You really want my wish list?" Kurt Rambis asked afterward. "I have one. If you watched the game, I think it's fairly evident."

But over in the visitors' locker room Tuesday night, Kobe Bryant considered the team he had just beaten and advised patience and prudence.

"It's coming," he said. "It's a team that still has young pieces. You don't want to look back years from now and say, `Wow, they had Wesley Johnson, they had Kevin Love, they had Beasley, all on the same team.' Then you look up and they're playing for someone else. That's your crew and you got to keep it together and they've got to grow together."

Bryant, btw, scored 20 of his first 24 points after halftime -- including 12 in the third quarter alone -- on a night when Johnson made him work for most of what he got.

The Lakers' reserves turned the game with a 16-3 that ended the third quarter and began the fourth, which Rambis started with this group: Flynn, Ellington, Randolph, Hayward and Tolliver.

Got an early flight to Detroit in the morning for Wednesday's game there against the Pistons, the start of a three-game trip that also reaches Philadelphia and Washington so I bid you good night from Target Center.