Probasketball

Five years ago Thursday, Ron Artest was a part of one of the worst brawls in sports history when he and his Indiana Pacers teammates went into the stands during a game against the Detroit Pistons at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich. Five years later, on the anniversary of that unforgettable event, Artest was tracked down before the Lakers played the Chicago Bulls at Staples Center and asked what he recalled from that night. Artest maintained that he "didn't start any trouble" and that he should get some of his money back after being suspended for 73 games without pay. "I put it behind me immediately because I did nothing," Artest said.

The Lakers pledged to play a physical game and did it. They promised to beat back the swagger and strut of the Denver Nuggets and succeeded. On an afternoon when little went right for Kobe Bryant, the Lakers boxed out their main rivals in the Western Conference, elbowing aside the Nuggets in a 95-89 victory Sunday at Staples Center. It took a second half of defensive resolve, specifically a fourth quarter in which the Lakers forced the Nuggets into five turnovers and five-for-19 shooting.

If you're reading this in the afternoon, it might already be official: The Lakers will announce today that Pau Gasol has signed a three-year contract extension. The sides agreed to terms late last week, but Gasol had to return home with the team and pass a physical exam before signing an extension worth up to $64.7 million, depending on NBA salary-cap figures to be determined in 2011. Gasol made the All-Star team last season and could do it again this season, averaging 17.1 points, 12.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists a game before Tuesday.

Not that we didn't already know what a gap there was between the West's best team and everyone else . . . Of course, in Sunday's first half when the Denver Nuggets, who had already beaten the Lakers twice by an average of 19.5 points, led them again by 13, it looked as if there was a new best team in the Western Conference, standings or no standings. Staving off panic locally, the Lakers came back to win . . . barely . . . going ahead to stay with 3 minutes 2 seconds left, even with Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups shooting a combined 11 for 31 and turning the ball over 13 times.

Ralph Lawler hadn't missed a Clippers broadcast in 25 years. Not for a cold or flu or even a kidney stone attack. He's been at the microphone for every dreary Clippers loss and the occasional uplifting victory. Until Friday night. Fox yanked Lawler and analyst Michael Smith from Friday's Prime Ticket broadcast of the game against the Denver Nuggets after Clippers season-ticket holder Arya Towfighi objected to an on-air exchange between the announcers toward the end of Wednesday's 106-91 Clippers loss at Memphis.

Kobe Bryant has made plenty of history with the Lakers, be it an 81-point game, an entire chapter of game-winning shots and, above all, an overall performance level that has netted him 11 All-Star appearances and four championships rings. He made history of a different type Sunday against the Milwaukee Bucks, making four of 21 shots (19%) in one of his worst shooting games ever. Good thing he had Andrew Bynum and a couple of keyed-up reserve guards as teammates. Bynum had 17 points and a career-high 18 rebounds, and Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar combined for 36 points in the Lakers' 95-77 victory over Milwaukee at Staples Center.

Ron Artest felt slow and sluggish, very much unlike the defender he used to be. "I'm trying to get my defense back to what it was a couple of years ago," the Lakers forward said Wednesday. "I think I'm on the path. The second half of this season and then next year, I should be one of the best defenders." Artest was slowed this season by plantar fasciitis -- painful swelling on the underside of his feet -- but also took a look at something else: his diet. He weighed 266 two months ago. He kept thinking how he weighed 245 when he was the NBA's defensive player of the year in 2004.

There was a reason Phil Jackson could be seen balancing a large stack of books earlier this week at a Los Angeles bookstore. The Lakers coach bought books for each of his players and distributed them before their eight-game trip, part of an annual ritual before a Jackson-coached team begins a long winter trip. Kobe Bryant , who rolls his eyes whenever Jackson gives him a book, probably won't be perusing what Jackson handed him: "Montana 1948," a Larry Watson novel about a middle-class Montana family torn apart by a scandal in the late 1940s.

Lakers forward Pau Gasol has agreed in principle to an extension that would keep him under contract through 2013-14, and Kobe Bryant has had ever-improving discussions on a contract extension that would keep him with the Lakers for the same period. On Friday, Gasol smiled and said, "I haven't signed anything yet," but it was merely semantics, the stroke of a pen probably completing his extension within a few days after the Lakers' trip ends Sunday in Detroit, according to sources close to the negotiations but not authorized to speak publicly.

Gary Vitti eased his way into a hat store in Cleveland on a recent Lakers trip in search of a lid for his bald head, when the door quickly opened and a man burst in. "Hey, you're Gary Vitti, the Lakers' trainer," the man blurted out. "You're the man! You're more important than the coach." Vitti rubbed his head and laughed at what he had just heard. "No, man," Vitti said, smiling, "no way." When this story was shared with Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, he cracked a smile and laughed.

Ron Artest sat in his chair with his hands on his chin, a towel wrapped around his waist, an ice bucket nearby, a look of interest at the mob of reporters surrounding teammate Lamar Odom. Artest slowly began to dress, appearing content with the job he had just completed. He was acquired last summer by the Lakers to put the clamps on All-Star small forwards such as Denver's Carmelo Anthony. And Artest did, using his strength and defensive acumen to hold Anthony down to the point the Nuggets' star fouled out during the Lakers' 95-89 victory over Denver on Sunday at Staples Center.

Welcome back, Mike! Oh, you haven't gone anywhere? It only seemed as if Michael Jordan were fading from the scene because, let's face it, he hadn't been omnipresent as Charlotte Bobcats president, with the team's expected sale to former Houston Rockets president George Postolos. With Jordan unlikely to stay without total control, and unlikely to get it from Postolos, that would have been it for MJ in Charlotte and, who knows, maybe in the NBA, as anything but a famous face at the All-Star game.

Sunday's big game at Staples Center, Lakers versus Denver Nuggets, presents a different challenge for fans in attendance: clapping with your fingers crossed. The clapping will be for good basketball, great plays, outstanding athletic performance. Also, for a Lakers victory. The crossed fingers will be for George Karl. Assuming he feels well enough, Karl will be the squat, 58-year-old guy prowling the Nuggets' sideline. He will yell sometimes, but mostly, he will have his hands crossed over his chest, watching, plotting and trying to figure out Phil Jackson's next move before Jackson makes it. He will probably be a bit less active than in the past.

Lamar Odom is well aware of what needs to be done. The Lakers forward has seen the confidence in the Denver Nuggets, witnessed the swagger of the second-best team in the Western Conference, and was definitely on the court as the Nuggets easily took two games against the Lakers this season. For those wondering about a solution to the pesky, pugnacious Nuggets, Odom has one for Sunday's game -- get physical. "It will be a hard game," he said Saturday. "We have to embrace the game being hard.

It has been a weird glitch for the Lakers, a hiccup in the franchise, extending all the way back to the three-championship run that began almost a decade ago. They always seem to struggle against the lesser teams, laughably so in some cases, the Charlotte Bobcats a prime example in recent seasons. The Lakers have done a notable job reversing the trend this season, but then the Philadelphia 76ers rolled into town. It took almost the full 48 minutes, but the Lakers managed to win a numbingly bland game, 99-90, Friday at Staples Center.

Readers' questions for our Lakers beat reporter Mike Bresnahan. Questions will be answered every Friday at latimes.com/sports Question: Lamar Odom may not have the numbers of some of the other candidates for Sixth Man of the Year, but he has a wider variety of skills than those guys and is always in the game during crunch time. So why am I not hearing his name in Sixth Man of the Year talk? -- Steve Sanders, Venice Answer: Wait a sec. Steve Sanders. From "90210" fame?

Ron Artest is a fast learner. In the few months he's been able to call the Lakers his new team, he has one thing figured out -- don't ask Kobe Bryant how he's feeling. "If I ask him how his finger is doing, he's going to strangle me," Artest said. "When he's hurt, you're not allowed to ask him how he's doing or you're not allowed to ask him, 'Are you OK?' He gets really mad. Really. You think he's playing. He's really serious." Bryant pretty much showed everybody how he felt with a 42-point outburst Tuesday in the Lakers' 96-87 victory over the Chicago Bulls at the United Center.

It looked as if Kurt Rambis never left town. He stood on the Lakers' practice court Thursday in El Segundo and cracked jokes with Lakers assistant coach Brian Shaw, whittling away the time as players shot free throws after practice. In a window behind him, up over his right shoulder, stood a row of championship trophies, many of which he helped win as a player and later an assistant coach with the Lakers. Then Rambis turned to a guy wearing a wolf logo on his shirt and asked him to text some information.

Andrew Bynum reached another first in his career, though he probably wouldn't want to do it again. Bynum, 22, was hit with his first NBA-imposed fine for criticizing referees after the Lakers' 101-96 loss Wednesday in Dallas. Bynum was fined $25,000 for saying, "It's hard to win when it's five against eight," a thinly cloaked reference to the judgment of referees Ron Garretson , Michael Smith and Eli Roe . The Lakers had as many fouls as the Mavericks (20), but Dallas shot 26 free throws to 16 for the Lakers.

Friday night at Staples had a chance to be a big yawn. It is February, when the mind numbs at the thought of yet another NBA game, even if that game includes the defending champion Lakers. Right now, things such as hockey and skiing and, horrors, curling are front and center. Give them their due. Once every four years. But there is no stopping the NBA express, which needs eight months to fill owners' coffers, make men who can leap and shoot into gazillionaires, and entertain as many fans as possible.