Bryant, Arenas conscious of talk

Take 2.

Kobe Bryant and Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas dialed it up a level when they last saw each other, Arenas becoming the first Lakers opponent to score 60 points since Wilt Chamberlain did it in February 1966. (Chamberlain had 65.)

Arenas also overshadowed Bryant’s 45-point, 10-rebound, eight-assist effort in the Wizards’ 147-141 overtime victory Dec. 17 at Staples Center. They meet again tonight in Washington.

“There is a rivalry there,” Lakers Coach Phil Jackson acknowledged.

Bryant was apparently irreverent after the December game, saying at the time Arenas didn’t “have much of a conscience.”

“I really don’t think he does. Some of the shots he took tonight, you miss those, and they’re just terrible shots. Awful,” Bryant said that night. “You make them and they’re unbelievable shots. I don’t get a chance to play him much, so I haven’t gotten used to that mentality of just chucking it up there. He made some big ones, but I’ll be ready next time.”

Bryant’s words created a small stir on the talk-radio circuit. He stepped back from them leading up to tonight’s game.

“Somebody who just doesn’t understand the game of basketball took that and misinterpreted that,” he said recently. “That was a high compliment because there’s not too many players around the league that can have that type of explosiveness. So when you say a player doesn’t have a conscience, you mean that with the utmost of respect. That means he can go out there and have the confidence to put the ball up and get hot.”

Some of the Lakers were privately irritated when Arenas bowed to the Staples Center crowd toward the end of that game, but Bryant said he didn’t sense a rivalry with him.

“That stuff just doesn’t excite me anymore,” he said. “It just doesn’t get me up. How we do really excites me.”

Arenas was initially bothered by Bryant’s remarks, claiming that from a statistical standpoint, “my numbers are blowing his out of the water the first six years in the league.”

Like Bryant, Arenas has also backed off.

“At the end of day, he’s my idol,” Arenas, who went to Van Nuys Grant High, told the Washington Post. “That’s who I grew up trying to be like when I was still in high school. The blood is still good between me and him.”

*

The Lakers will also go up against All-Star forward Caron Butler, who played for the Lakers in 2004-05 and was traded after that season to Washington along with Chucky Atkins for Kwame Brown.

Butler has averaged 20.6 points, eight rebounds and 3.9 assists in the Wizards’ push-the-pace scheme.

“We didn’t want to have to trade him,” Jackson said. “There’s no doubt about it. We had to give up something to get a big man. At that particular point, we really needed a big man in this organization. We got Andrew [Bynum] and Kwame the same year. Caron was the guy that had to go, and that’s a tough situation.”

*

Brown is still feeling pain in his left ankle and will see an ankle specialist Wednesday in Indianapolis. The doctor was not available Friday because he was with the Colts for the Super Bowl. Brown will not play the next two games and is doubtful for the rest of the trip, a team spokesman said.

TONIGHT

at Washington, 4, Ch. 9

Site -- Verizon Center.

Radio -- 570, 1330.

Records -- Lakers 28-19; Wizards 27-18.

Record vs. Wizards -- 0-1.

Update -- The Wizards are second in the league in scoring (107.1 points a game) and are tied with Detroit for the best record in the Eastern Conference.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com