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LOS ANGELES -- There have been many times over the course of this season when one could have wished to be a fly on the wall in the Los Angeles Lakers' locker room, their training room or even the Buss family living room.

The moments are far too many to number at this point and in the aftermath of the season just blend together like a marathon showing of “Jersey Shore.”

But perhaps the most fascinating moment came Sunday night as Dwight Howard was inexcusably ejected from a game in which he was one of only two players from the Lakers’ regular rotation able to walk.

Howard already had received a technical in the first half for complaining about a call, then picked up a second technical a little less than two minutes into the third quarter with the Lakers down 55-34. Many Lakers fans hadn’t even made it back to their seats from halftime as Howard walked back to the locker room.

Less than two minutes after Howard's ejection, Kobe Bryant, who was watching the game from the Lakers’ locker room, was making his way to the Lakers’ bench on crutches.

He didn’t want to be a distraction to the team but wanted to be as close to them as possible. He was at the Lakers’ facility for practices and shootarounds, but disappeared before the media were allowed in. He also was in the locker room and training room at Staples Center before and after home games, but was nowhere to be found when the doors opened for the media.

His reaction in the locker room after Dwight’s ejection was no doubt priceless and deserved a string of hashtag-laced tweets, had he not sworn off Twitter posts during games after it became a distraction in the aftermath of Game 1 in San Antonio.

Howard said by the time he got to the locker room, Bryant wasn’t there and he had no idea he had walked out onto the court. Maybe Bryant wanted to be as far away from Howard as possible after his boneheaded decisions and lackluster performance (seven points, five turnovers and eight rebounds) and the furthest he could get without leaving was actually limping toward the bench.

Maybe Bryant just wanted to give the Lakers, down 58-37 with 8:47 left in the third quarter, some inspiration or the fans something to cheer about. But aside from a momentary standing ovation, a short “M-V-P!” chant and an even shorter 7-2 Lakers’ run, that was about it.

Bryant was like a hobbled coach sitting behind the bench. He would get up and lean on his crutches as he yelled instructions at Darius Morris and Andrew Goudelock, then whispered in their ears when they sat down in front of him.

“He’s always coaching,” Goudelock said. “I’m like a dog when I’m listening to him talk. My ears stand straight up. You can’t teach the things he’s been through.

“I think he thought we felt a little push, a little motivation, a little something to get the crowd into it. I think he did that, but it’s just tough.”

Bryant wouldn’t talk after the game and isn’t scheduled to address the media after exit interviews on Monday and Tuesday. As he sat in the back of a golf cart and was asked about Howard being ejected, Bryant laughed as the cart sped away while reporters chased after him.

Howard probably wished he were able to speed away in the back of a cart as he was once again noncommittal about his future with the Lakers and unaware that Bryant walked out onto the court almost as soon as Howard left the court.

“I haven’t seen him,” Howard said. “I didn’t see him. I didn’t even know he went out there.”

Either Howard wasn’t being totally honest or he simply checked out of the game as soon as he was ejected and didn’t care what his team did in the second half and was immune to why the crowd was cheering moments after he left. Either way, it wasn’t a good look.

The beginning of the Lakers’ offseason will begin the relentless debate about Howard and Bryant’s relationship, which Howard hates talking about almost as much as his plans for next season.

"We've had a pretty good relationship before I got here and I think a lot of people twisted a lot of things,” Howard said. “The fake fights that people said we supposedly had, we maintained a pretty good relationship and we'll continue to be here for him throughout a process that he has to go through recovering from his Achilles."


There had been a feeling that perhaps Bryant’s injury may have brought the two players together. Howard visited Bryant in the locker room and at his house, and he made sure other players visited him, as well.

"I don't think that we were that far apart [before Bryant's injury],” Howard said. “We're not best friends, but like I said, I want to be there for him. Having an injury is a tough thing to deal with alone, and I just want to be there for him as a brother before anything.”


Whether Howard will be there for him next season as a teammate, as well, or whether the two crossed paths at Staples Center for the last time as Lakers on Sunday won’t be known anytime soon. That decision will just be the next episode in what has become Hollywood’s most interesting reality show.

LOS ANGELES -- The Lakers are in.

In what seemed like a remote possibility months ago and a dicey proposition even a week ago when Kobe Bryant went out with a torn Achilles, the Lakers not only got into the playoffs, they got in playing a brand of basketball that could equate to some continued postseason success.

Here they are, 16 wins from an unlikely championship No. 17, with a suddenly stingy defense that allowed its past two opponents -- one of them being the highest-scoring team in the league in the Houston Rockets and the other being the No. 2 team in the West in the San Antonio Spurs -- to average 93 points on 39.3 percent shooting.

Here they are, riding a wave of momentum and playing with one rock that is finding so many hands -- from the five guys who scored eight points or more against the Spurs to the six guys who tallied nine points or more against the Rockets.

Even when the ball was spread around Wednesday, it didn't always go in, of course; L.A. shot just 36.7 percent as a team. But the fact that it kept moving kept the Lakers' bodies moving on defense.

"The great thing about it was everybody contributed," Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said.

Who makes up the "everybody" on the Lakers' roster that D'Antoni was referring to has changed drastically throughout the season and maybe even more so in the past two games without Bryant.

Suddenly Darius Morris has a place off the bench. And Steve Blake is relied on to score (47 points over his past two games, a dramatic change from the player who scored two points or fewer 16 times in 2011-12). And Jodie Meeks is starting in Bryant's place and even receiving "Jo-die! Jo-die!" chants from the crowd, taking Kobe's cheers.

Most important, the team identity is firmly established. The Lakers are an inside-out team controlled by Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol. They are not the second coming of Showtime. They are not Bryant freelancing with shades of the triangle. They are not Steve Nash running the pick-and-roll or Bryant running the pick-and-roll.

This is a team that will slow you down, grind you out, pound you all over and do it on both ends.

"Because [Bryant is] such a big, important part of what we did, and rightly so, it is different," D'Antoni said before the game Wednesday. "And then when Nash comes back, it will be a little different again. So, there’s always different layers, but he’s a big layer or two."

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LOS ANGELES -- It figured to be an emotional night in the first Los Angeles Lakers game since Kobe Bryant went out with that devastating season-ending Achilles tear. And L.A. used the charged atmosphere to its advantage.

Here's a look back at L.A.'s game No. 81 of the season and game No. 1 without Kobe, where the Lakers improved to 44-37, the most games above .500 they've been all season:

How it happened: L.A. controlled the game from the tip and withstood the Hack-a-Howard strategy by the San Antonio Spurs in the third quarter to pull ahead in the end, thanks to some timely fourth-quarter buckets by Antawn Jamison and made free throws by Dwight Howard and Steve Blake.

What it means: If the Utah Jazz lose either of their next two games -- at the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday or at the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday -- the Lakers are in the playoffs no matter what happens on Wednesday, when the Lakers host the Houston Rockets in their regular-season finale.

Hits: Howard might have shot just 4-for-11 on free throws in the third quarter, but he was lights out all game for the most part. He clearly wanted to step up in Bryant's absence and finished with 26 points and 17 rebounds, while shooting 9-for-15 from the floor.

Blake scored 23 points, topping the 20-point plateau for just the 17th time of his 10-year career.

Jamison scored nine of his 15 points in the fourth quarter.

Misses: Gasol shot just 3-for-17 from the floor -- but chipped in 16 rebounds.

Stat of the game: The Lakers shot just 31-for-85 from the field (36.5 percent) and still managed to win, holding San Antonio to 37.1 percent shooting overall.

Up next: One game left -- Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. against Houston. Oh boy.

LOS ANGELES -- Kobe Bryant will always be associated with the number 81, and with good reason. But here are two more digits tied to Bryant that are just as eye-popping: 79.

As in 79 seconds, the total amount of time Bryant has sat in the Los Angeles Lakers' last two games -- both wins -- coming just shy of going the distance and playing the maximum 96 minutes.

Bryant scoring in the 80s as a 27-year-old was one thing. But to play two entire games in a row as a 34-year-old nursing a bum left ankle that exacerbated a bone spur in his left foot? And then to not only play that much time, but to average 21 points, 12.5 assists, 10 rebounds, three steals and one blocked shot? Well, that’s another thing altogether.

"Hopefully all those minutes that he's playing won't affect him in a negative way down the road," Pau Gasol said. "He's giving it all. He knows the importance of this time of the year, and he's just fully working and fully playing at his best."

That Bryant played all but the final 23 seconds of the third quarter against the Sacramento Kings on Saturday was his call. He told coach Mike D'Antoni after the first quarter to leave him in because he intended to play the entire game.

Tuesday against the Dallas Mavericks was a little different, as it seemed coach and player planned it together.

"Well, we talked about it," D'Antoni said. "You know the timeouts are so long because of TNT and the 20-minute halftime, so he just felt great and goes, 'Why? Why come out?' He wanted to play the whole game."

Bryant's stat line was a thing a beauty -- 23 points, 11 assists, 11 rebounds, four steals and two blocks to account for his 19th career triple-double. But afterward his body was feeling the ugly aftereffects of pushing that hard for that long.

"I feel sore right now," Bryant said, drowning his legs in an ice bucket in front of his locker. "My back is a little sore and my hamstrings are a little sore.

“I just have to push through it a little bit right now."

That's the balance L.A. is trying to pull off: pushing Bryant and the team as hard as it can over the final seven games of the regular season to make it into the playoffs, but not burn out and have nothing left when the postseason begins.

"We have to watch because we got to play Friday [against the Memphis Grizzlies] and Sunday [against the Los Angeles Clippers] so we got to be careful," D'Antoni said. "So, going forward we're going to try to get [Bryant] some more time [on the bench], get Steve [Nash] back and get him some more time [to rest]."

For now, it worked. The Lakers got two wins and Bryant got to add another triple-double to his career count, something that has barely eluded him all season long.

Bryant has had one other triple-double this season, with 22 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists against Houston on Nov. 18. However, there have been 14 others he's missed by needing a few more assists or rebounds or both.

"I’ve had a lot of them like this where I’ve been a rebound or an assist away," Bryant said. "It really depends on the [defensive] coverages. You look at teams and how they’re playing, and then it’s on me to manipulate the defense and put my guys in a position to be successful."

Yup, every single minute of the game.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It was a historic night for Kobe Bryant.

He passed Wilt Chamberlain, one of the true legends of the game and an almost mythical man from Bryant’s hometown of Philadelphia, for fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.

It was a heroic night for Kobe Bryant, too, at least by basketball standards.

A game after needing a crutch to exit the arena in Milwaukee because he “couldn’t walk” on his left foot (because the bone spur inside of it had become so inflamed), the 34-year-old Bryant played all but 23 seconds in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 103-98 win over the Sacramento Kings.

Both the micro feat of what he did on Saturday and the macro feat of what he did on all those Saturdays -- and Sundays and Fridays and everything in between -- before it are worth celebrating.

“He'll be talked about as one of the greatest,” Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said after the game.

He most certainly will.

But the thing about Bryant’s game Saturday that will give the Lakers a chance of doing something significant the rest of the way won't be Bryant's piling up eye-popping point totals or his action movie star-like resistance to pain.

It will be the impact he has on his team, on the game, when he doesn’t do those things.

Bryant had 14 assists -- the same number he put up in consecutive games in late January when L.A. finally cut the crap and started to play decent basketball consistently for the first time all season -- and it trickled down.

“We have guys that will step up if everybody will trust everybody,” D’Antoni said. “The key is when it happens like that on offense, you see the energy on the defensive end. That’s where it comes out, and we were a team tonight and it looked good.”

It’s a simple formula.

Bryant passed, and in turn, so did Pau Gasol (10 assists), and in turn, Dwight Howard got plenty of touches (14 shot attempts, 10 free throw attempts), and in turn, Howard played like a man possessed on defense and the boards.

“I just felt Dwight’s activity was really the big game-changer,” Bryant said, doling out praise with the same generosity with which he dished out assists. “His offensive rebounds in the third and fourth quarters really keyed the rally for us.”

Counting the Kings game, the Lakers now are 11-6 this season when Howard gets 10 shots or more from both the floor and the free throw line. Howard’s rebounding and blocks numbers in those games? Thirteen boards and three rejections, so there’s certainly a correlation.

The other thing Bryant didn’t do was play those 23 seconds at the end of the third quarter.

D’Antoni took him out when there was a timeout, throwing Darius Morris in the game so Bryant could get a little extended rest before the fourth quarter started.

Bryant had told D’Antoni at the end of the first quarter that he wanted to play the whole game.

“Mike looked at me [to sit to start the second quarter], and I said, ‘Nuh uh,’” Bryant said. “I’m going 48 tonight.”

It was a tough-minded gesture, but it also was one that could be construed as selfish: I’m going to tell the coach how much I play and I’m going to play the whole damn game.

When D’Antoni took Bryant out at the end of the third, Bryant said he didn’t ask for it but agreed, “It made sense.”

It goes back to D’Antoni’s quote about passing: “Everybody will step up if everybody will trust everybody.”

Even if D’Antoni is the offensive “genius” Bryant declared him to be when L.A. hired the coach, D’Antoni will not be worth a damn on the sidelines if his players don’t trust what he’s asking them to implement.

Just like Steve Blake wouldn’t be able to fill in for the injured Steve Nash with 15 points or Jodie Meeks wouldn’t be able to be plugged into the starting lineup for Metta World Peace and score 14 points if their teammates didn’t trust them to shoulder the load left behind by Nash and World Peace.

Rather than Blake and Meeks just being fillers out there so L.A. had the requisite five men on the floor as Bryant or Howard or Gasol looked at it as an opportunity to gobble up all those shots that used to belong Nash and World Peace, they were incorporated and relied on to contribute just as much as the so-called stars.

It was the same trust that had the Lakers sticking to the game plan after giving up 37 points in the first quarter and trailing by 12, instead of letting doubt creep in that they needed to change things.

"Basically we were just saying, 'Stay with what we're doing,'" Blake said. "Because we were communicating really well; they were just knocking down shots. I mean, they shot the ball incredible. We figured if we could continue to talk like that and communicate and play hard, they'd eventually start missing. That's what happened."

That's what needs to continue to happen over the final eight games of the season if L.A. is to have any hope of sneaking its way into the playoffs.

Otherwise the only thing truly historic about this season for L.A. will be the 2012-13 Lakers being one of the biggest busts in professional sports history.

And there's certainly nothing heroic about that.

LOS ANGELES -- Injuries have been the story of the Los Angeles Lakers' season as much as anything, from Dwight Howard's back and shoulder to Pau Gasol's knees and foot to Jordan Hill's hip, Steve Nash's leg, Steve Blake's groin and now Kobe Bryant's ankle.

And there was another injury that went unreported and hampered L.A., as well.

After scoring 22 points on 10-for-13 shooting against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday, Metta World Peace revealed he had been playing through a right leg injury for more than two months.

"I popped something in my fibula, but it didn't tear," World Peace said, saying he suffered the injury when the Lakers hosted the Oklahoma City Thunder on Jan. 11.

World Peace said he took a charge on San Antonio's Tiago Splitter on Jan. 9 and got kneed in the pelvic region, which led to the leg injury in his next game.

"Messed up my alignment," World Peace said. "Most injuries come from when your pelvis is not aligned. People don't know that."

The injury, combined with an injury to his right arm around the same time that made it difficult to bend his elbow, prevented him from doing his normal in-season weight lifting routine.

"I had to sacrifice some of my exercises, some of my strength and conditioning," World Peace said. "I couldn't do as much, so then I was getting weaker a little bit. I was getting weaker throughout the season.”

“As I got healthy, then I was able to get back,” he said. “Now I'm able to lift again and do my exercises and agility and stuff. Now I'm able to guard guys again. I'm moving my feet well, and I have a lot of strength down low."

It was so bad that Mike D'Antoni didn't feel comfortable putting World Peace on the opposing team's best wing scorer anymore -- his bread and butter. Instead the Lakers coach moved him to big man defensive duties.

"I thought he was really having trouble guarding perimeter guys and that's why I kind of moved him to the 4,” D'Antoni said, “but now he's guarding perimeter guys fine.”

Prior to the string of injuries, World Peace had scored 20 or more points in four out of nine games and was finding a consistent role in the offense.

"If you look back at that Houston game [before it] and the San Antonio game, I was getting to the hole," World Peace said. "If you look back at that game, I was getting to the hole anytime I wanted, going coast to coast. After that game, it was kind of downhill and I started to miss layups. And when I started to miss layups, I had to resort to shooting 3s."

It took a while to get back to form, but World Peace is clicking once again. He estimated he is 98 percent better. He has scored in double digits in eight of the Lakers' nine games in the month of March.

"I'm moving now again," World Peace said.

It's showing on both ends of the court.

"He's playing a very high level defensively," D'Antoni said. "If he can do that, then when Pau [Gasol] comes back, that's really going to help a lot with him being able to guard the perimeter."

LOS ANGELES -- There was a telling quote from Antawn Jamison after the Los Angeles Lakers rallied to win in Indianapolis without Kobe Bryant the other night.

"We have too much talent to think that there's not a chance for us to win when he's not out there," Jamison said.

Bryant didn't play Sunday, marking the first time all season he didn't suit up. But Jamison and the Lakers showed what kind of talent it has without their leader.

Journeyman Jamison reminded everybody why he is No. 43 on the NBA's all-time scoring list and just 176 points away from 20,000 for his career by hitting from all over the court en route to a team-high 27 points on 8-for-14 shooting, including 5-for-8 on 3-pointers.

Just like in Indiana, it wasn't just Jamison, either.

Steve Nash showed he is just as much a former two-time MVP as he is a 39-year-old, posting 19 points and 12 assists.

Metta World Peace showed he's more than a tough wing defender, scoring 22 points on 10-for-12 shooting, after putting up 19 against the Indiana Pacers.

Dwight Howard looked healthier than he has maybe all season, tallying 12 points, 17 rebounds and five blocked shots.

Steve Blake had 16 points and eight assists. Earl Clark had 11 points and eight rebounds.

Everybody contributed.

Solid win.

How it happened: After Sacramento went on a 10-0 run to cut L.A.'s lead to just 90-88 in the fourth quarter, Blake came up huge, drawing a foul on Jason Thompson to thwart a sure Sacramento Kings bucket on the fast break, then hitting a 3-pointer soon after to put L.A. up 95-88. The Lakers regained control of the game, sparking a 13-2 run overall. They rolled from there, winning by 11 and going four games above .500, at 36-32, for the first time all season.

What it means: "They know where we are [in the standings],” Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said before the game. “They know how important these games are at home, especially. We just can’t kick one like we did in Atlanta." The Lakers made it interesting against a Kings team that came into the game 20 games under .500. But they won, which is what they need to keep doing for the final 14 games of the regular season. Now that L.A. has been flirting with a playoff spot for some time, they can even think about moving up the ladder.

"Just looking at [the standings] real quick, No. 6, right?" D'Antoni said before his team won for the 11th time in 14 tries since the All-Star break. "That seems to be the thing. I wouldn’t think anything else. That would be a goal that we try to get to."

Hits: Sunday marked the first time since Pau Gasol was traded to the Lakers on Feb. 1, 2008, that L.A. won a game in which Bryant and Gasol did not play.

Howard grabbed 17 rebounds, keeping his streak of collecting 12 or more rebounds in every game since the All-Star break intact. The 14 games with 12 or more boards ties the longest such streak he's had in his career.

Misses: With Bryant out, D'Antoni shrunk his rotation even more, playing just seven guys.

L.A. allowed Patrick Patterson to go off for 22 points on 9-for-12 shooting.

The Lakers had 15 turnovers, resulting in 17 points for Sacramento while forcing the Kings into just six turnovers.

Stat of the game: The Lakers average 22 assists per game as a team, ranking 16th in the league, and outdid themselves Sunday with 28 dimes on 41 baskets (68.3 percent).

What's next: The Lakers will have a chance to do something they've failed to do all season in 13 attempts: sweep a back-to-back. L.A. plays in Phoenix on Monday. Coming into Sunday, the Lakers were 5-8 on the front end of back-to-backs and also 5-8 on the back end of back-to-backs this season. They'll have to beware of the 22-45 Suns, however. The Lakers lost the last time they went to Phoenix this season in Nash's return game.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Before the game Tuesday night, Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said he believed his team had truly turned the corner and it had "stuck" for the previous 18 games, with L.A. winning 13 of them.

The second of those wins was against the Oklahoma City Thunder back in January, when the Lakers held OKC's potent offense to just 96 points. It was a needed win at the time.

But to do it again at Chesapeake Energy Arena, where the Thunder were 26-4, could really legitimize the run the Lakers have been on.

"You look at the schedule, you look at OKC, and I use it more as a measuring stick of where we need to go," D'Antoni said. "What we have to improve on."

They can start with protecting the basketball.

A game after coughing it up 21 times against Atlanta, leading to 29 points for the Hawks, the Lakers had 16 turnovers Tuesday against the Thunder that led to 22 points.

Shoring up their defense overall would help, too.

Despite Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard stating repeatedly that the Lakers would have to control the tempo and slow down the rolling Thunder in order to have a chance in the game, Oklahoma City scored 71 points in the first half en route to 122 for the game.

Even if the Lakers accomplish their goal of making the playoffs, they have a long ways to go to have a chance of knocking off a team such as the Thunder in a seven-game series. Here’s a quick overview of Tuesday’s tilt:

How it happened: Things looked mighty bleak in the early going, with Bryant going to the locker room with an ulnar nerve contusion in his right arm and Howard needing a timeout to attend to his sore right shoulder. All the while, the Thunder kept putting up points like the scoreboard was a pinball machine. The Lakers crawled their way back within five in the fourth, thanks to 10 points in the final period from Metta World Peace and Steve Nash's finding his stroke (finishing 7-for-15 for 20 points, after going just 1-for-7 in the first half).

What it means: The Lakers’ time at .500 was short lived, and they'll have to wait until at least Friday against Toronto to get back over .500 for the first time since Nov. 20. Meanwhile, L.A. still doesn't have an answer for Russell Westbrook (37 points, 10 rebounds, five assists) or Kevin Durant (26 points, nine rebounds, five assists, three steals, three blocks).

Hits: Bryant scored 30 points on 8-for-19 shooting, despite the right elbow injury. He hit three big 3s and helped keep L.A. within striking distance for most of the game.

Earl Clark (13 points, 11 rebounds) had another double-double, but his five first-half turnovers made D'Antoni start Antawn Jamison in the second half.

Misses: Howard fouled out with just six points on 1-for-7 shooting. (He did manage 16 rebounds.)

The Lakers were outscored 52-22 in points in the paint.

The Lakers' bench was outscored 39-20, with Derek Fisher pouring in 10 points on 3-for-4 shooting for the Thunder.

Stat of the game: The Thunder finished with just two turnovers, tying the NBA record for fewest turnovers in a game.

What's next: The Lakers play the second night of their road back-to-back in New Orleans on Wednesday. The Hornets are just 21-40 on the season, but they are full of young legs and had Tuesday off to rest in anticipation of L.A.’s visit.

LOS ANGELES -- When trying to get their players to relish the fundamentals rather than squirt more mustard on the hot dog with the fancier play, coaches at all levels remind their guys that a dunk is not worth more than a layup. They both count for two points.

Kobe Bryant put that theory to the test Sunday during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 99-98 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.

Yes, Bryant's driving layup with 9 seconds left over the outstretched arms of the 6-foot-9 Josh Smith proved to be the game winner.

However, it was Bryant's turn-back-the-clock dunk two minutes earlier -- when he blew by Smith and took off past the charge circle -- that might well have decided the contest.

"It’s more of a message to my team here to try to kind of have that will, that hunger to push through it by any means necessary," Bryant said after finishing with a game-high 34 points, which is right in line with the 34.8 points on 56.9 percent shooting he's been putting up over the past five games. The Lakers have gone 4-1 in that stretch to post a 30-30 record and get back to .500 for the first time since Dec. 28.

It sums up the rigors Bryant puts his 34-year-old body through in order to be able to perform at this high of a level in his 17th season. The ice baths. The strict diet. The pre-dawn workouts.

All to make himself able to compete night in and night out. And all to make himself compete the same way as the league's best player, LeBron James, even though James is six years his junior.

And Bryant hasn't relinquished the ability to seize momentum with a good, old-fashioned, game-changing jam.

"It definitely energizes all of us. Man, he’s jumping with power, too," said Steve Blake, who had the game-ending steal off an errant Smith pass following Bryant's offensive heroics. "You got to move on to the next play. But for that split instant you’re just like, ‘Wow,’ and you know he’s demoralized the other team for that moment. Sometimes it can take confidence away from the other team, even on the offensive end."

We saw it in Brooklyn this season, when Kobe threw down on Gerald Wallace and Kris Humphries in the closing minutes and had the Nets' own fans chanting "MVP" for Bryant.

And we're seeing it more at this stage of his renaissance career then we did in previous seasons when it seemed like he was winding down.

Bryant now has 33 dunks in the Lakers' 60 games this season, good for an average of .55 dunks a night. That's a better dunking rate than the 28 he had in 58 games last season when he was 33 (.48 average). And the 38 he had in 82 games in 2010-11, when he was 32 (.46). And the 36 in 73 games in 2009-10 when he was 31 (.49).

"I was in my coffin a few years ago," Bryant said, gladly reminding the media that plenty of the pundits and scribes out there have soiled hands from prematurely throwing dirt on his grave. "Vino is out of the barrel."

"Vino" is the new nickname Bryant adopted after a writer for his advertising agency called him it in a text after Bryant had three highlight reel variety dunks Thursday against Minnesota.

As Bryant has gotten better with age, his new-look Lakers team also has improved as the season has progressed. They've won 13 of their past 18 games, with Bryant making a playoff guarantee to Sports Illustrated during that stretch.

"His belief in himself is huge," Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said of Bryant.

The formula for Bryant's slam-dunk resurgence is part confidence and part physical dedication. It’s partly schematic, too.

"I can get to the rim a lot more because the floor is more spread," Bryant explained this week. "So I can attack the basket. And my passing and teammates knocking down shots opens the floor more for me, because I can get all the way to the rim."

The one teammate who will matter most in determining if these dunks by Bryant will lead to something more, or just end up in YouTube mixes for years to come, is Dwight Howard.

"It was a great dunk," Howard said. "He probably surprised himself with that one."

Even though Howard jokingly gave Bryant only an "8 or 9" out of 10 for the dunk, any praise for Bryant was positive to hear after Howard bizarrely refused to comment on Bryant's dunks after the Minnesota game.

That doesn't mean they're destined to pour championship champagne on one another, but even Howard seems to have accepted the recipe for how the Lakers are winning games.

"People are starting to see how tough we can be when we play together," Howard said.

For now, the rest of the league is drinking the "Vino" Kool-Aid right along with Bryant.

Atlanta's Al Horford called Bryant "the best player in the game." Denver's Andre Iguodala tweeted that Bryant's fourth-quarter slam was the dunk of the season.

However, Bryant's 1996 NBA vintage seems to age better when stored along with some doubt.

"I got plenty in the tank, but if you all want to feel free to criticize and say I don’t, go right ahead," Bryant said.

LOS ANGELES -- Are we sure Kobe Bryant is really 34 years old and in his 17th season?

He put on yet another turn-back-the clock performance on Sunday with 11 of his game-high 34 points in the fourth quarter of the Los Angeles Lakers’ thrilling 99-98 win over the Atlanta Hawks.

Much in the same fashion that Bryant's game seemingly has gotten better with age, he saved his best stuff for the final minutes against the Hawks -- soaring past Josh Smith for his best dunk of the season, knocking down clutch free throws and hitting a tough, driving layup with nine seconds left that proved to be the difference-maker.

How it happened: The Lakers led by as many as 16 points in the third quarter but allowed Atlanta's hot shooters off the bench (Kyle Korver and Devin Harris had 16 points apiece) to get the Hawks back in it. But Bryant and Metta World Peace (two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter) made the plays that mattered in the win.

What it means: All the jokes about the Lakers restarting the season for the umpteenth time aside, the guys in purple and gold got back to the same even record they began the 2012-13 campaign with on Sunday.

At 30-30 with the win over the Hawks, the Lakers are .500 for the first time since Dec. 28, when they were 15-15.

Hits: Bryant did the scoring (34 points on 13-for-27 shooting), Dwight Howard did the rebounding (a game-high 15 boards) and Steve Nash did the passing (a game-high 10 assists). That's how it's supposed to work.

Novak Djokovic, the world's No. 1 ranked tennis player, visited the Lakers' locker room before the game and spent time with Howard and Antawn Jamison joking and posing for photographs.

Misses: Howard shot 5-for-12 from the field and allowed his frustration to boil over into being called for a technical foul.

Jamison finished 3-for-7 after starting the game 3-for-3.

Stat of the game: This isn't an encouraging one. The Lakers had 21 turnovers, leading to 29 points for Atlanta.


What's next: The Lakers go on the road for a back-to-back tilts starting Tuesday in Oklahoma City. The Thunder have won four of their past five games and are 26-4 at home, including a 114-108 win the last time the Lakers visited Chesapeake Energy Arena. The Lakers follow it up Wednesday on the road against the New Orleans Hornets, who are just 21-39 as of Sunday.

David Stern will retire as NBA commissioner next spring after a long run with the league that started full time when he was hired as the NBA's general counsel in 1978, one year before Dr. Jerry Buss bought the Los Angeles Lakers.

Both the Lakers and the league as a whole experienced incredible growth and success in that time and Stern and Buss developed a strong friendship.

Stern called in to the "Mason & Ireland Show" on ESPNLA 710 radio on Tuesday to share his memories of Dr. Buss:

In regards to what made Buss a great sports owner, in his opinion:

“Well, he used those numbers and other intuitive features to judge basketball players and to judge those who work for him. We must not forget, Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak have done quite well for Jerry and in addition, as a business man, he understood what it would do to raise ticket prices to the Forum, to give Magic (Johnson) a contract that was outsized by any standard and he used those talents to learn everything there was to learn and make many suggestions about our league and how it should be run.”

On how the NBA would be different had there not been Buss' influence:

“I don’t know whether he led it, or innovated it, or he just flat out changed everything because we’ll never know, but for example, he looked at ticket prices and told us that everybody was pricing the best seats in the house wrong. The supply was limited and the demand would be unlimited and he changed the pricing structure. Would we ultimately have reached that conclusion a decade or so later? Maybe, probably, but he led it and then one fine day, long before there was a salary cap, Jerry thought it’d be a good idea to pay Magic Johnson a million dollars a year for 25 years, an outrageous amount of money that caused some owners to seriously consider selling their teams because this was so nuts. Of course it wasn’t nuts at all, it was, as Jerry said, he was making even a bigger star out of Magic and he realized what Magic could do with the franchise. There were many examples like that, Jerry did them all.”

In regards to how Buss was able to sell his ideas to other owners in league, ex: Laker girls, seating prices, etc.:

"I don’t think he forced his will; he led by example. I don’t remember any blow back on ticket pricing, just a lot of scratching of heads. On the Laker girls, my goodness gracious, I always say that Red Auerbach had the Celtics as the last team that didn’t have cheerleaders. And on the day they were supposed to launch, Red decided it was time to leave this Earth. Go check the records, Red was consistent for all of those years. He didn’t think there should be cheerleaders and he used to push at me for not being strong enough, or whatever it was. That was his pet peeve, but Jerry did it by example. ... With the business of basketball, and even though it says he didn’t meddle, I think that it’s fair also to say that he was the basketball presence of the Lakers, as well, because all decisions went through him. "

In relation to the Chris Paul trade and whether it was an issue with Buss:

“Not even an issue. We had a discussion about why he thought it was good for his team to do what they planned to do and someday I’ll tell everyone what he said about that, but then he also said he understood what I did and there was no rancor of any kind and we had … because we have been having a steady of conversation about collective bargaining and revenue sharing -- because of course Jerry was quite interested in that subject because much of it could be sought to be directed at the Lakers, because they were the largest-grossing team and other teams were going to be sharing in some of that and they were going to be, if they kept their payroll intact, the largest payer of tax because the tax was going up. But Jerry understood that it was in the best interest of the league and his wish was that his partners treated the Lakers fairly because he had always been a good league man.”

In relation to when Stern first saw greatness in Buss:

“It’s just a solid business acumen, time after time. Player drafting, player signing, business practices, being a fixture on the advisory finance committee, being a fixture on important collective bargaining committees and throughout it all, all I can tell you is, he took great pride in what his children were doing and even though I hear the word flamboyant, he was actually, people would find this hard to believe, a modest intellectual to me at many times and he was a thorough delight to have as a friend and an owner.”

CHICAGO -- To borrow a line from those great ESPN “30 for 30” teasers: What if I told you Dwight Howard would miss zero games because of his surgically repaired back in the first half of the Los Angeles Lakers' 2012-13 season and the team would be 17-24, seven games under .500, at the midway point?

You wouldn't believe it, right?

The Lakers entered the past offseason as an old and slow team but acquired one of the top 10 players in the league, a physical specimen unlike any other, yet here they are getting worse by the day.

Thought Sunday's loss to the Toronto Raptors was bad, when Howard got an unfair shake in the first half by picking up a phantom technical foul (that has since been rescinded by the league) and Kobe Bryant went 10-for-32 shooting and took all the blame?

How about Monday's version of events, when Howard managed just 8 points, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks, 4 turnovers and 5 fouls in 30 minutes? He should have come out like a man on fire in making up for the Raptors game, but after the Lakers' 12-point loss to the Bulls he placed the blame anywhere but on himself.

Here's how Howard explained away the result in his postgame interview:

Question: Why couldn't he get going?

Howard: "They made it tough. I missed some shots early, didn't get an opportunity to go to work like I wanted to. But it will be OK."

How do you fix it?

Howard: "Just got to stay together, keep believing. We can't quit on each other. I know how tough it's been for us, but we got to stick together. I hate what we're going through, but it's got to be for a reason. I don't know the reason right now, but everything happens for a reason. And whatever we're going through, we can't lose faith. We just got to stay positive."

Why didn't he have a bounce-back effort like the last time he was ejected from a game, against Denver, then dominated against Portland?

Howard: "Look at the stat sheet."

Fouls?

"No, look at the stat sheet."

Turnovers?

"Look at the stat sheet."

Then a reporter brought up Howard's shot total of five, of which he made two. (Howard shot 4-for-8 from the free throw line, also, so the meager total of five shots is a bit skewed.)

How can you get more shots?

Howard: "You guys know. It's simple. Play inside-out."

What can you do to play inside-out?

Howard: "There's not nothing I can do. Just continue to play. Not get frustrated. As hard as it is, I can't get frustrated."

Will playing inside-out fix things?

Howard: "We just got to play the right way. All I can tell you guys is we just got to keep believing. We can't lose faith in each other. It's tough. The team that we are, we're not built to lose like this. It's frustrating, but we just got to find a way to stick together.”

He continued: "Like I said earlier, everything happens for a reason and there's a reason why we're going through all this failure right now. It seems like the harder we try, the faster we fall. We just got to figure out a way to stay strong throughout all the crap that's keeping us down. It's tough. It's tough as a team. It's tough as individuals, because we want to do so good. But it's frustrating. The only thing we can do is keep looking up and try to pull ourselves up."

The perplexing part is that Howard said the team needs to keep its faith in one another in one breath, then in the next breath he vaguely referred to the stat sheet that saw him go 2-for-5 ... while Bryant shot 7-for-22, extending Bryant's three-game slump to a 25-for-79 total from the field.

Howard didn't explicitly blame Bryant, the way Kobe asked the media to do Sunday, but he might as well have.

Words shouldn't matter at this point. We all know actions are the only way to get the Lakers turned in the right direction -- actions such as protecting the basketball (L.A. had 16 turnovers to Chicago's eight), making shots (L.A. went 3-for-17 from the 3-point line while Chicago was 9-for-17 from 3), sharing the basketball (the Bulls had 25 assists to the Lakers' 15).

But if you're going to talk, it's better not to contradict yourself.

Pau Gasol, a two-time champion with these Lakers and four-time All-Star, had as much reason to whine as any Lakers player (and he did a little) after being reduced to a bench role, but he let his 15 points and 12 rebounds in just 26 minutes say so much more.

When reporters tried to pry quotes out of Gasol about how upset he was with Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni, he kept turning the conversation toward the team instead of himself.

"It starts by us being on the same page, having each other’s back, just being supportive of each other," Gasol said. "Not making excuses. Not pointing fingers. And just owning up to our responsibilities and wanting to get out of this and having the pride necessary that it takes to utilize our talents and go beat the opponent no matter who it is, no matter where we are."

When will Howard own up to his responsibilities? When will he play with the consistency that will be necessary for the Lakers to have a chance to spin things around?

D'Antoni didn't have an answer when asked if he had any explanation for Howard's inconsistency.

"No," D'Antoni said.

Howard's first season in a Lakers uniform is halfway over and there are still more questions than answers.

Will Howard re-sign as a free agent at the end of the season? After a half-season of evidence, will the Lakers want to re-sign him and make him the face of the franchise moving forward once Bryant retires? Can this season possibly take a turn for the better? Or, maybe more aptly, can this season get any worse?

Dave McMenamin covers the Lakers for ESPNLosAngeles.com. Follow him on Twitter.

CHICAGO -- The Los Angeles Lakers played game No. 41 of their 82-game schedule in near identical fashion to the way they've played most of their games in the first half of this nightmare of a season: fall down early; scramble to get back in the game; get close but not close enough because team cohesion and energy aren't quite there; and lose the game.

Same script, different darn day.

Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said before they played the Chicago Bulls on Monday that "good" teams in this league lose 26 games in a season, while "bad" teams only manage to win 26.

Well, in order for the 17-24 Lakers to become one of those "good" teams by way of D'Antoni's explanation, they have to go 39-2 over the second half of the year.

Good luck with that.

Here’s a look at the script from Chicago:

How it happened: The Lakers were able to erase an early 11-point deficit to tie the game at six heading into the fourth quarter. Then, it all fell apart. It was a one-possession game with a little more than four minutes remaining, then the Bulls had the lead back up to double digits in the blink of an eye as the Lakers' long-range shots clanked off the rim and Chicago's outside specialists were able to shoot freely against L.A. defenders who were slow to close out.

What it means: The first half of the season was a complete and utter disaster for this Lakers team. They are now 5-14 on the road, with a road-heavy second half of the schedule. It's tough to see them turning it around.

Hits: Steve Nash had 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting, along with six assists. Pau Gasol made the most of his new bench role, putting up 15 points and 12 rebounds as a substitute. And Earl Clark continued his inspired play with 12 points and eight boards.

Misses: After Dwight Howard was ejected Sunday in Toronto, the prevailing thought coming into Monday’s contest with Chicago was the big man would respond with a monster effort versus the Bulls. So much for that theory. During a wildly inconsistent season, Howard added to his puzzling personal tale, accounting for just six points, nine rebounds and two blocks, to go along with his four turnovers and five fouls in 30 minutes.

Kobe Bryant shot 7-for-22 from the field to bring his three-game shooting slump to a deplorable 25-for-79 (31.6 percent) from the field.

Injuries have been a constant refrain for the Lakers this season. But the Bulls were playing without Derrick Rose and Luol Deng. With Kirk Hinrich (22 points on 9-for-11 shooting, eight assists) and Jimmy Butler (10 points, eight rebounds and four assists in 44 energy-infused minutes), the Bulls' offense didn't skip a beat.

Stat of the night: The Bulls shot 9-for-17 from the 3-point line, while the Lakers shot 3-for-17.

What's next: The Lakers have Tuesday off as they travel to Memphis after an 0-2 back-to-back against Toronto and Chicago. They'll close out their three-game road trip against the Grizzlies on Wednesday. It doesn't get any easier after that, with seven out of L.A.'s next 10 games after Memphis coming away from Staples Center.

Dave McMenamin covers the Lakers for ESPNLosAngeles.com. Follow him on Twitter.

CHICAGO -- Perhaps in a move by the NBA to capitalize on the immense global popularity of Kobe Bryant -- who could be playing his final season in 2013-14 -- the Los Angeles Lakers will participate in the China Games next preseason, according to multiple team sources.

The Los Angeles Clippers and defending-champion Miami Heat represented the league in the sixth edition of the China Games in Beijing and Shanghai in October.

Bryant has one year remaining on his current contract with the Lakers and has repeatedly said he plans to play only "two or three" more seasons, including the 2012-13 campaign.

The Lakers last traveled abroad to participate in the NBA's Europe Live promotion in 2010-11, holding a portion of their training camp in Barcelona and London.

Dave McMenamin covers the Lakers for ESPNLosAngeles.com. Follow him on Twitter.

ESPNRadio.com: Lakers forward Pau Gasol discusses what the Lakers need to do in order to make a run at the playoffs now that they're finally healthy. Listen here


CHICAGO -- Plenty of things went wrong for the Lakers as their road losing streak extended to five with a 108-103 defeat at the hands of a hapless Toronto Raptors team that was just 14-26 coming into the game.

Dwight Howard was ejected. Kobe Bryant shot just 10-for-32. The Lakers' defense allowed Toronto to shoot 54.8 percent from the field as a team.

But one thing that went in the right direction for a Lakers squad that seems to be regressing by the day was the play of Pau Gasol.

Gasol scored a season-high 25 points on 10-for-15 shooting, with 18 of those coming in the second half, when Howard was out of the game and Gasol became L.A.'s primary focus on the block.

"You saw a steady diet of Pau in the post tonight, which I’m very happy about -- I’m very, very happy about -- because we got a lot of easy things from him down there," Bryant said after the game. "So, we’ll start seeing that more often."

It was just the second 20-plus point game for Gasol this season; the first came in the opener against the Dallas Mavericks on Oct. 30. The 12-year veteran is averaging career lows in points per game (12.6) and shooting (43.2 percent) this year. To put it in perspective, the four-time All-Star has scored in single digits three times as many times as he's scored 20 or more this season.

Gasol said that his output wasn't just a product of him being parked in the paint, but came from the general thrust of him being involved in the offense more often.

"I don't think the second half we ran a lot of the offense through the post," Gasol said as he made his way out of the arena to the Lakers' team bus Sunday in Toronto. "It was more through, like, pick-and-rolls and me setting good screens and the point guard finding me -- Steve [Nash], Chris [Duhon] and I think Kobe also found me once or twice. That was more it. It wasn't a lot through the post.”

“Our system doesn't really put you in that position too often. It depends,” he said. “You start with a pick-and-roll, then you roll, then you might get to the post. But then, it will depend on the ball getting to the wing and then to hit you. It's different steps that you depend on in order for the ball to get there."

Gasol huddled with Metta World Peace in the locker room at length after the Toronto game to figure out a way to best put the pieces the Lakers have together.

"I think the only way we can get out of this situation, the path that we’ve been on, is by communicating and coming to an understanding of what needs to be done as a unit," Gasol said.

"We can’t do it on our own. Right now, there’s a few cracks in our game that we need to cover up. We need to make sure they disappear, they go away. The only way that can happen is if we talk about it as a unit, understand each other and figure it out."

Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni acquiesced to Gasol's desire to start, and it paid off Sunday. We'll see if the coach can continue to cater the offense to the Spaniard, now that he's been given a reminder of how good Gasol can be.

"Get the Lakers right," D'Antoni said when asked after the Raptors loss what L.A. has to do moving forward. "We haven’t gotten it right. That’s going to have to be our focus. It doesn’t have anything to do with the other teams. It’s got a lot to do with us."

That will take a continued effort to try to mesh Gasol in with all the other pieces.

"I'm going to try to get myself there," Gasol said. "It's going to be a little more challenging when me and Dwight are on the court together, but I think it's worth it if we can figure it out. I think it will benefit everyone. That's hopefully the point that we'll reach sooner than later."

Can it happen starting tonight against Chicago?

"We'll see what happens," Gasol said. "Every game is a little different, right? I wish I had the answer and the certainty that things will happen a certain way, but I don't. We're searching."

Dave McMenamin covers the Lakers for ESPNLosAngeles.com. Follow him on Twitter.