As our man Dave McMenamin reports from Rip City, Kobe's sprained ankle is hurting enough to prompt a night on the inactive list. Given Bryant's threshold for pain and rigid insistence on playing by any means necessary (235 consecutive games before tonight's), it's certainly striking when he can't give it a run.

Hopefully, the ankle --originally injured against on Jan. 29 against Philadelphia, then re-aggravated Wednesday against Charlotte-- wasn't made significantly worse due to playing last night against Denver, and this decision is just a matter of playing things safe.

As someone who's been calling for Kobe to rest his completely aching body, it's certainly a welcome development, assuming it didn't come too late. In any event, I'm still glad to see Kobe take the cautious route.