Bryant Gives Lakers a Break

If this was Kobe Bryant trying to convince David Stern he was physically unable to play in Sunday’s NBA All-Star game, he failed.

Instead, this was Bryant sharpening his game for the second half, gathering his teammates, putting the basketball into the guts of the cutters, scoring on three outrageous alley-oops in a three-minute span of the third quarter.

Then he made the shot that would win the game, that would send the Lakers happily to their golf engagements and family outings and down time. He made a 17-foot jump shot over Shawn Marion, after one jab step and one dribble, with 2.7 seconds remaining.

As a result, and in the final game of an emotionally cluttered half-season of basketball, the Lakers defeated the Phoenix Suns, 85-83, Wednesday night at Staples Center. Though they were held to 15 fourth-quarter points, the Lakers won their third consecutive game, all without Shaquille O’Neal, their injured center who received guarded permission to resume his season Tuesday in New Jersey. They also have won three of four games.

“It’s a real good sign,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “Guys were pleased with it. So am I.”

Phoenix, which rallied from a lethargic start and a 16-point deficit late in the third quarter, tied the score, 83-83, on Tom Gugliotta’s three-point shot with 11.5 seconds left. On the Lakers’ possession, as time fell off the clock, Bryant stood on the right wing, eight players to his left, he and Marion alone.

“I was hanging all up in his face,” Marion said. “I tried to get a piece of it. But it went down and that was that. You can watch the tape. I almost got it.”

It was a shot reminiscent of the one Bryant made to win a playoff game against Phoenix last year, and not 15 feet from the same spot.

“I’m not thinking,” Bryant said. “I’m not confident. I have doubts, just like everybody in the crowd.”

The jumper was pure. And when Clifford Robinson’s off-balance three-point try at the buzzer did not fall, Bryant balled his fists, thrust both arms in the air, and accepted a delirious hug from rookie Mark Madsen. Bryant scored 32 points. He also had eight rebounds and nine assists.

“I think everybody in the building knew who was going to take that shot,” Laker guard Brian Shaw said. “And he made it calmly.”

Before the game, one Sun coach or another wrote their keys to beat the Lakers on the white grease board.

It read:

“Transition: Get below the line of the ball.

“CONTAIN KOBE.

“He will take it 1 on 4.”

And the Suns bunched around Bryant, who made 13 of 26 shots and scored 11 points in the fourth quarter. He did not go one on four. In fact, he rarely went one on two.

So Madsen scored 13 points. Ron Harper scored 16 points. Rick Fox scored eight. The Laker offense has added a dimension or two in the past week, when it most needed it, and the Suns were unable to cover all of the options.

“Once he started trying to score,” Sun Coach Scott Skiles said, “he scored.”

Though he said his ailing right shoulder “hurts real bad,” Bryant intends to play in the All-Star game.

“I don’t want a five-game suspension,” he said.

Bryant said that he had heard from someone other than the league that the suspension, along with a fine, was possible.

“It’s been rumored,” Bryant said.

Bryant passed out of the double teams, and appreciative teammates pointed at him on the way back down the court.

Bryant found cutters to the basket, and they finished, and they slapped his hand, and Bryant grinned. He seemed to be having fun. They all did.

At the end of the first quarter, Bryant found the basketball in his hands, 30 feet from the basket, and hit that, at the buzzer.

It was only his fourth shot of the quarter.

By halftime, only one Laker had scored in double figures. And it was Madsen. Bryant had six assists.

The Lakers reeled between periods of executing their offense as precisely as they had all season and then stumbling around within it. Nearly seven minutes through the first quarter, they had six points. But the Suns had only seven.

There were a handful of cold spells, periods when they previously threw the ball to O’Neal and figured he’d get them through it.

This time Bryant got them through it, with seconds to spare.

Lakers

Comparing the Lakers last season and this season at the All-Star break:

99-00 00-01

RECORD

37-11 31-16

PTS. PER GAME

99.6 99.9

FG%

.453 .465

FT%

.672 .663

*

WARRIORS 89

CLIPPERS 88

Bob Sura’s free throw with 0.7 seconds to play sealed victory for Golden State. D4