After 81, Tonight’s ‘Same Old Thing’

The Lakers and Kobe Bryant have had four days to recover and reflect on his 81-point performance against Toronto, the second-highest single-game point total in NBA history.

They return to the court tonight against Golden State, which is struggling after a 12-6 start.

The Warriors have one of the league’s best backcourt tandems in Baron Davis and Jason Richardson. But most eyes will be on Bryant, the NBA scoring leader with an average of 35.9.

Bryant offered no hint Thursday of what he might do for an encore.

“We’ll just go out there and do what we do, to try and win the game,” he said before practice. “That’s basically it. Same old thing: punch the clock and try and leave with a ‘W.’ ”

Most important, Bryant said, is ending the current homestand on a good note before the Lakers embark on a seven-game trip, their longest of the season.

“We want to go out to the road trip with some kind of rhythm and build up some type of momentum,” he said.

Lamar Odom wouldn’t mind seeing another Bryant point explosion.

“If he can get 100, I hope he gets 100,” Odom said. “Seriously.”

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Had he known going into the season that the Lakers would be three games over .500 halfway through, would that have been good enough for Coach Phil Jackson?

“I thought we had a really difficult schedule at the beginning of the season with a lot of road games, including 10 of 15 in December,” Jackson said Thursday. “So I suppose I would have said, ‘You bet, that’s good enough for us,’ and we’d try to make it up in the second half.

“After all those short-end losses we had the first half of the season, though, I feel we could have been much better. But from that standpoint we’re trying to improve. From the standpoint of being grateful where we’re at, we’ll accept it.”

The Lakers, who have won six of their last nine games, would hold the seventh slot in the Western Conference if the playoffs started today. In the Pacific Division, the Lakers are third, three games ahead of Golden State and 4 1/2 games ahead of Sacramento.

“We’ve been playing well of late, and that’s something we have to continue in the second half,” Chris Mihm said. “We need to find more consistency. We’ve kind of been a team of streaks. ... We’ve been doing a better job as of late closing out and winning close games. But we had six or seven games we should have won that we let slip.”

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Jackson on the trade that sent Ron Artest to Sacramento: “It’s kind of an exclamation point, asterisk, whatever, to have him in our division, and against a team we still have to face three more times. He will make a difference in their ballclub. ... He’s an impact guy. Whether that gives us a leg up or them an opportunity to be in the playoffs is still to be determined. But we do know it’s going to change our relationship to that team as far as the competitive nature our games bring. And you can hardly bring a greater competitive element to it.”

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TONIGHT

vs. Golden State, 7:30, FSN West

Site -- Staples Center.

Radio -- 570, 1330.

Records -- Lakers 22-19, Warriors 19-22.

Record vs. Warriors -- 1-0.

Update -- January has not been kind to the Warriors, who have lost three in a row and eight of 10. And Staples is a lousy stop. Golden State has lost 20 of its last 22 road games against the Lakers.