The Los Angeles Lakers came from behind from an 18-point deficit in the second half against the Oklahoma City Thunder as Kobe Bryant scored six of his 26 points in the second overtime for a 114-106 victory.
The other big story of the evening was Metta World Peace's violent elbow to James Harden's head after celebrating a dunk over Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka on a fast break. Metta World Peace was ejected late in the second quarter with a flagrant foul-2. He finished the game with 12 points.
"I got real emotional and excited, and it was unfortunate that James had to get hit with the unintentional elbow," said World Peace.
"I hope he's OK. Oklahoma, they're playing for a championship this year. I apologize to the Thunder and James Harden. It was just unfortunate."
Harden fell to the floor and did not get up for about a minute. Harden left the game to have things examined and returned to the Thunder's bench, but did not play the rest of the game. He finished with 14 points.
''I'm just happy my teammate is all right,'' said Durant. "It was a bad play. Hopefully Ron didn't do it intentionally or have any malicious intentions on that. We've got to move past that.''
Kevin Durant scored 35 points and grabbed 8 rebounds for Oklahoma City. The Thunder fell 1 1/2 games behind San Antonio in the Western Conference while the Lakers stays a half game in front of the LA Clippers for third place.
The Laker's comeback victory can be credited to a strong performance from Pau Gasol added 20 points, 14 rebounds and 9 assists in the Lakers their final home regular season game. Bryant also turned up his game despite a poor shooting night. His defense on the Thunder's Russell Westbrook and scoring 9 points at the end of the fourth quarter was key in the win.
''It's not so much that we beat Oklahoma, but how we did it,'' said Bryant. "In the playoffs, particularly if you don't have home-court advantage, you're going to have games like this. We have to have the poise and the confidence to just keep chipping away.''
