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Good news out of El Segundo Monday afternoon. Lakers center Andrew Bynum, who left Sunday's win over the Warriors with 1:51 to play in the first quarter after landing on teammate Josh McRoberts' foot and rolling his left ankle, will be listed as "day-to-day" ahead of tomorrow's game at Staples against New Jersey.

Bynum spent the day with Gary Vitti getting treatment, but didn't require an MRI for what was called a "moderate" sprain during yesterday's game.

Whether he plays against the Nets or not -- if there's any question, he ought to sit -- it seems unlikely he'll miss extended time, obviously something the Lakers can't afford.

The Lakers are about to kick off the second half, which means plenty of action in the room. Among the talking points were Kobe Bryant's concussion, trade scenarios and Andrew Bynum's knee.

Here is the link to the chat.

Here are your 10 additional things to take away from the Lakers' 90-87 overtime road win against the Utah Jazz on Wednesday ...

At 7 feet, 250 pounds and one of a dying breed of true back-to-the-basket post players in the league, Pau Gasol has been relegated to the paint for most of his 11-year career.

When he dared dabble out on the perimeter the results haven't been pretty. Sure, he proved he could hit a 3-pointer in a pressure-cooker situation with that triple he connected on in the fourth quarter of Game 3 of the first round against New Orleans last spring, but he also infamously missed a potential winning 3-pointer at the buzzer that Phil Jackson had drawn up for him in a game against Portland a few seasons back and had just a 19-for-88 career mark from downtown.

That all went out the window with 2:02 remaining in OT Wednesday when Kobe Bryant sucked in the defense at passed out to a wide-open Gasol who was parked in the corner and calmly splashed the 3 to turn a two-point deficit into a one-point lead for L.A.

"I’m just glad that he found me and I was [shooting] with confidence and I practiced that shot enough that I can make it," said Gasol who had hit a 3-pointer in the preseason against the Clippers but started off the regular season 0-for-3 from deep. "I was also happy that I made it because I did not have a good game overall, so it was a big play for the team to make and I was happy I was able to score and knock it down basically."

Gasol finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds, but had five turnovers, including two early in the extra period that led to the Jazz opening up a four-point lead.

Lakers coach Mike Brown said Gasol has "a green light to shoot the 3," and added, "as you could tell, guys trust him [shooting it]," but it wasn't such and easy decision for Bryant to cough it up.

"Coach [John] Kuester’s been urging me to trust him at the 3-point line, because he’s statistically one of our better 3-point shooters in practice and I decided to kick it to him and he knocked it down," Bryant said. "I thought about it [for what] seemed like an eternity and I thought, ‘What the hell.’"

After the pass, Bryant's thoughts shifted to the heavens.

"If you think [Tim] Tebow prays, when that ball left his hands I must have said 30 Hail Mary’s in 10 seconds," Bryant said.

Gasol made it clear that he's not going to go all Dirk Nowitzki all of the sudden and start using his 7-foot frame to launch from beyond the arc with regularity, but he said he wants to test his range from game to game to see if he's feeling it from deep on that particular night.

"That won’t be the focus of my game, at all," Gasol said. "It will just be another weapon, another thing to add up to it."

Brown seems to be endorsing the option.

"He can shoot that thing," Brown said. "He can shoot it very well."

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Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant continues to play -- and succeed -- despite a torn lunotriquetral ligament in his right wrist. The superstar guard took part in a full practice on Monday in El Segundo, with no problems reported, and remains on track to play in Tuesday’s game against the Phoenix Suns.

In the meantime, Bryant was named the Western Conference’s Player of the Week after posting averages of 33 points and 6.3 assists during a 3-1 week for the Lakers.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, the news on Josh McRoberts isn’t as promising. The reserve forward continues to deal with a sprained big left toe and was termed as “doubtful” by a team source for the Suns game.

McRoberts has missed four games due to the injury, which initially took place after a collision with Sacramento Kings forward DeMarcus Cousins in the second game of the season.

Here are your 10 additional things to take away from the Lakers' 99-90 road loss against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday ...

The Lakers led 90-88 with 2:47 remaining in the fourth quarter on Sunday before Denver went on an 11-0 run to finish the game.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The Lakers were ahead of the Chicago Bulls by 11 with 3:44 remaining in the season opener, before the Bulls finished with a 17-5 run to end it.

The Lakers were down by just two to the Sacramento Kings with 4:24 remaining before the Kings ended the game with an 11-4 spurt.

And so, New Year's Day felt a little like the movie "Groundhog Day" as the Lakers once again stumbled down the stretch.

"To close out games, you need to be able to execute and that’s something we’re struggling with right now to be consistent at doing, is executing and getting our guys that we want to have the basketball at certain times at certain spots where they can be most effective," said Lakers co-captain Derek Fisher.

The Lakers were outscored 27-19 in the fourth quarter, allowing Denver to shoot 10-for-17 (58.8 percent), including giving up a 7-0 edge to the Nugget in fastbreak points.

"To win close games, in particular close games on the road, No. 1, you can’t play from behind the entire time, but No. 2, you have to be able to execute down the stretch and we weren’t able to do that which led to some of the runouts that [Danilo] Gallinari got out there at the end," Fisher said.

Pau Gasol could only shake his head at Los Angeles' 3-3 record to start the season.

"Those three losses were three games that we could have had. It’s very unfortunate when you let a team off the hook like we have in these three losses," Gasol said. "With this team and the talent that we have, we should have a little bit better record than we do now … Hopefully we’ll finish games off better than we have."

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El Segundo, Calif -- Los Angeles Lakers forward Derrick Caracter has suffered a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee, and will undergo surgery Wednesday.

Lakers spokesman John Black says the procedure will be performed by Dr. Steve Lombardo, and a timetable for Caracter’s recovery will be released upon completion. The injury was suffered Sunday at practice at the team facility in El Segundo.

Caracter was selected by the Lakers with the 58^th pick of the 2010 NBA draft. He played sparingly in his rookie season, appearing in 41 games and averaging 2.0 points and 1.1 rebounds in 5.0 minutes.

Caracter was expected to compete in training camp for playing time at power forward following the trade of Lamar Odom to the Dallas Mavericks.

Interesting stuff from ESPN The Magazine's Shawn Asseal, regarding the knee procedure Kobe Bryant underwent in Germany. Though it was widely described as PRP treatment -- the effectiveness of which is questioned, at least in some medical circles -- apparently Kobe, as he often does, went a step beyond:

"... Bryant traveled to Dusseldorf, Germany, in June for treatment, as previously reported. ESPN The Magazine has learned that he was treated by Dr. Peter Wehling, an influential but little-known molecular orthopedist who insists he's having breakthrough success repairing aging joints by manipulating his patients' blood.

According to a source familiar with Bryant's treatment, his blood was treated to isolate growth factors that attack inflammation, and then cultured with chemicals to increase their potency before being injected into his arthritic right knee. Wehling declined to confirm or deny that he treated Bryant. But in a rare interview about his work, he told ESPN The Magazine, "I am the only one to have found a way to cure arthritis..."

... Although Wehling's procedure shares some similarity to traditional platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy, the physician says he's achieved a nearly 90 percent success rate by genetically screening his patients to personalize their treatments."

Asseal reports Bryant was introduced to Wehling through Tracy McGrady, and for anyone concerned about the doc's bona fides, Wehling also at one point treated Pope John Paul II. I suspect they don't just hand popes over to whatever doctor pops up in the yellow pages.

Dr. Wehling's basic concept is described on the website for a company he co-founded called Orthogen. The truly ambitious can take a look at this page, pointing toward scientific publications regarding Wehling's work.

And now, because it better fits my level of medical expertise, I'm going back to playing this.

Those two things, by the way, are only tangentially related.

It just so happens that on the very same Thursday we spoke to Matt Barnes for the podcast and ESPNLA On Air, he found himself in a scrap during a San Francisco Pro-Am game later that night. Barnes reportedly threw a punch, and didn't seem terribly remorseful for having done so.

PODCAST
Lakers forward Matt Barnes talks about the condition of his knee, what went wrong last season, and his charity golf tournament. Podcast

Barnes caught flak in the same league last season for slapping the coach of another team. In the grand scheme of things, Thursday's incident means very little except Matt Barnes apparently takes basketball games- all basketball games- very seriously and that he has a temper, both things we already knew. Lakers fans, though, should be more concerned about the state of Barnes' knee, one of the subjects we kicked around in the interview (at right). Given their relative lack of depth at small forward and the low level of production from the 3 during the '10-'11 season, the Lakers can't afford a setback for Barnes. He's not a star, but before the injury was outplaying Ron Artest. Other topics of conversation include what went wrong for the Lakers against the Mavs, whether Barnes would consider playing overseas during a protracted lockout, and his charity golf tournament coming up next week.

Here are some highlights...

On the state of his knee: “It’s starting to come along. There were some complications that we kind of kept to ourselves on my comeback [during the regular season]. I ended up pinching a nerve in my back, on the same side as my knee, and it ended up making my knee swell, and really hurt. I just couldn’t do anything. I was icing constantly and at the same time trying to strengthen it, but if I strengthened it I started to swell. So I really couldn’t do too much once I came back during the season. We were hoping in the playoffs it would feel better, but it felt even worse. Needless to say after my injury, my season was basically over.”

“We took about 10 weeks off after the season, got all the swelling out, all the pain out, and now we’re starting to rebuild it. Everything’s feeling a lot better now.

On a scale of 1-10, where are you? "I’m about an eight, which is a good thing. And I definitely don’t want to be locked out, but taking advantage of this time being off; it’s allowing me not to have to rush back and have to do anything extreme to make my knee right. It’s going to be able to naturally heal.”

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The NBA lockout is officially upon us. To sort it all out, this week we reached out to ESPN.com's resident labor/cap analyst Larry Coon for some insight. He does a great job hashing out the big issues, but at the same time Coon's take is a little frightening, given how well he understands the issues at hand.

"I'm thinking this is going to be worse than it was in 1999, where it wasn't solved until January of the following year and nearly cost the entire season," he said. "They ended up salvaging a 50 game season. So I'm thinking that there's probably a 50/50 chance that we're either going to mid-January again, or of it resulting in the whole season being canceled."

PODCAST
ESPN.com's salary and labor guru Larry Coon joins us to talk lockout. Plus, Kobe's blood spinning knee procedure, Shannon Brown opts out, and discontinued McDonald's menu items. Podcast

Why worse? Coon lays out a few reasons:

• Not only have the economics of the game changed, so has the economy. The NBA isn't immune to the bad economic conditions of the last few years, poking big holes in confidence the league is an ever-expanding growth machine.
• Owner turnover: Gone are the days of owners picking up their franchise for $50 and a sack of hammers. Modern owners pay hundreds of millions for their teams, take on debt, and have far less margin for error. They believe the system doesn't work for them, and it must change.
• Today's players are savvier, with a better understanding across the rank-and-file of what's at stake. They're better prepared than in '98, and are more unified.

I wrote Friday morning about how a new CBA almost certainly will contain little upside for a high revenue, high payroll team like the Lakers. Coon agrees. "The playing field is going to be leveled out more, and teams that are typically not as competitive are going to be on a more even footing with the teams that typically are. So from a league-wide interest standpoint, you can argue that it's going to help. But from the standpoint especially from a team like the Lakers, who have a tradition of winning and are going to do their best always to try and field a winning team, it's probably going to hurt them."

After Coon says goodbye, we work through a few more questions about the lockout before moving on to Kobe Bryant's high tech, blood spinning PRP procedure undergone in Germany last month. Given his medical insurance may not cover expenses incurred in foreign countries, we wonder if he might have asked a certain Finals MVP if he could crash at his place, just to save a little coin. Plus, a brief reference to the McDLT (click on the link, by the way, it's worth it) spurs talk of discontinued McDonald's menu items.

Finally, Shannon Brown opts out. Any chance he comes back? If not, how will we remember his time in L.A.?

UPDATE: To learn more about PRP, click on the podcast module on the right. Dr. Robert Klapper, Director of the Joint Replacement Program and orthopaedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai hospital in L.A. Very informative.

Last month in Germany, Kobe Bryant underwent a procedure designed to promote healing in his surgically repaired right knee, the same one he had operated on last summer.

PODCAST
Dr. Robert Klapper joins the Max and Marcellus Show, talking about the type of procedure Kobe Bryant underwent on his right knee. Podcast

Called platelet rich plasma therapy (PRP), it uses a patient's own blood, drawn then spun through a centrifuge to isolate platelets and other growth factors before being injected back into the injured area. Bryant joins an increasingly long list of athletes who have given PRP a whirl, including Tiger Woods, Hines Ward, Troy Polamalu, and Cliff Lee. Plus a bunch of soccer players, something Kobe surely appreciates.

Whether it works or not, to what level, and under what circumstances is a matter of debate, but the procedure is pretty simple, minimally invasive, and requires little healing time. At the very least it appears to fall squarely in the no harm, no foul category, and certainly could prove quite beneficial. Call it a proactive move from Kobe to once again try and get ahead of the pain and structural issues in his troublesome joint.

Perhaps he had the procedure in mind at his exit interview, when speaking about how the extended summer afforded the chance to get stronger. Or maybe he has a particular interest in the German health care system. Either way, hopefully it works for him, and Bryant can come back stronger next year. Between the team's early postseason exit and the lockout, Bryant has the time to get his body working as well as it can after over 1,300 regular season and playoff games. Call it a silver lining, but an important one for sure.

The Lakers, if they want to operate at their most efficient in what will be a very important 2011-12 season relative to questions about the team's future, don't just need him healthy for games but practices, too.

Good news today for Matt Barnes, who underwent an MRI on the right knee costing him 26 games this season, before robbing him of his mobility during the playoffs. The results were very encouraging, and according to Lakers spokesman John Black, Barnes has regained full range of motion.

ESPNLA.com's Dave McMenamin has the full report, here.

At Lakers.com, Mike Trudell has a great interview with Lakers trainer Gary Vitti -- who could very well be the only member of the support staff returning next season -- covering a wide range of issues. Vitti talks about his relationship with Phil Jackson, and by extension, the relationship between a trainer and head coach. In short, the trainer hears things players may not want repeated. He also hears things demanding they be repeated.

Finding the right balance is key to gaining the trust of the general and infantry alike. Interesting stuff, well worth the read. Of course, "interesting" can't necessarily compete with a detailed breakdown of what's happening inside Kobe Bryant's knee.

"His is an articulating cartilage problem. The way I describe that to people is that if you look at the end of chicken bone where it’s nice and white, well, that’s not bone, it’s cartilage. Sort of like a Teflon surface that when two bones come together, that cartilage is there so that bones don’t rub on each other. Now, the fact that it’s nice and white tells you it doesn’t have a good blood flow to it, and that means it cannot heal or regenerate. So, over time, as that cartilage wears away, you end up with osteoarthritis. Kobe doesn’t have an arthritic knee, but he has a knee that has some joint degeneration to it. His issues and his age are such that it eliminates some procedures, like microfracture and that type of things. But he is a candidate for certain other things, and we know all the procedures all around the world that are available to him, and the appropriate decisions will be made, he’ll have the best care."

At his exit interview, Bryant said a long summer combined with better health at the end of this year vs. 2009-10 mean the chance to come back stronger next season. To reach "another level," as he put it. Vitti agreed it's possible, to a point. "I do think he has more progression there, but structurally there are some issues that cannot be reversed, but can be dealt with," he told Trudell. "There are a couple of cards we have up our sleeve that we plan on playing, and he and I have been in daily communication about that."

It's impossible to predict how Bryant will hold up heading forward-- he's as well equipped as anyone to hold off Father Time for as long as possible-- but while simultaneously giving you something totally new to think about after stripping clean a plate of buffalo wings, Vitti illustrates the obstacles Kobe faces in the battle to stave off steep physical decline.

(H/T: TrueHoop)

Shannon Brown, describing the second-quarter dunk from Kobe Bryant over Emeka Okafor electrifying both the crowd and the team in Tuesday's Game 5 win, called it a moment reminiscent of a younger Kobe: "He dug deep. Whatever they gave him, I want some," Brown said. "Whatever the shot, the pill, whatever it was ... I want some. It was like he had his Afro back."

Certainly this guy would have been proud.

After the game, Bryant broke down the play.

"I just had a lane to the basket. It looked like he was going to challenge me at the rim, and I accepted the challenge," he said. "It's [was] a message for us that this is important. It's time to raise up and do what we've got to do. They know I save those. I don't have [many] of those left."

Oh, and regarding Kobe's decision not to get pictures (magnetic or X-ray) of his bad foot and ankle following Game 4, he explained it following Tuesday's win. "I was moving OK. I didn't feel like it was broke or anything like that. If it was it really wouldn't matter, anyway. I would have played, anyway. So it would have been a waste of time to go all the way up there and do that and then sit in the 405 traffic for two hours," he said.

"I don't know why you guys were so concerned about the MRI. It's not like we would have told you the results, anyway."

And there you have it. Still don't love the logic, but if I overestimated the potential severity of the injury coming out of Sunday's game and Monday's practice, I'm happy to be wrong. Asked about his therapy schedule, Kobe said following Game 4 he underwent treatment "All the time. Non stop." Obviously it helped, as will a relatively light load (28-plus minutes, only three shots in the second half) Tuesday ahead of Wednesday's flight to New Orleans.

The book isn't closed on Sunday's injury, but for the time being it seems like the author isn't Stephen King.

More from Bryant below the jump...

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No change in Kobe Bryant's status following shootaround this morning. He plans to play tonight in Game 5 against the Hornets. ESPNLA.com's Dave McMenamin has all the details

I'm not surprised he'll try to play, but still believe Bryant's resistance to further diagnostic testing, apparently continuing, makes absolutely no sense.

It takes something big to overshadow an extremely disappointing, potentially damaging playoff loss. The type suffered by the Lakers Sunday night in New Orleans, for example.

A nasty looking injury to Kobe Bryant certainly qualifies.

Bryant rolled his left ankle and foot late in the fourth quarter of Game 4, and left New Orleans Arena on crutches. ESPNLA.com's Dave McMenamin has a full report. Watch the clip, here. It certainly looks painful, in part because Bryant seems not simply to roll the ankle sideways, but the foot forward as well. Never a good thing. Still, and this will surprise you, Kobe says he expects to play Tuesday night in Game 5 at Staples.

"I should play," Bryant said. "It's going to take a lot to stop me from playing.

"I'm concerned, as I am about any injury, but I've played through so many of them it kind of becomes old hat for me."

Kobe acknowledged the injury is related to the foot as much as the ankle, differentiating it from other sprains he's dealt with in the past. Different isn't necessarily better. (Most fans would prefer a more "been there, done that" injury.) Either way, while Kobe has played and played well on a wide range of injuries over the years, it's hard to believe he can go from crutches to hunky dory in 48 hours. Even assuming he's well enough to play (like most people, I'd be surprised if he doesn't suit up), Sunday's loss guarantees a quick turnaround for Game 6 in New Orleans Thursday. That's three games in five nights, with two flights in between. Not exactly ideal conditions for healing.

Meaning while Sunday's injury will rightly be a serious talking point in the lead up to Game 5, it's unlikely to drop off the radar anytime soon.