Even a limited Kobe Bryant is good enough for Lakers

In the bad news for the Utah Jazz, Kobe Bryant put the uniform on Wednesday night.

After that, it went just the way Coach Jerry Sloan was afraid it would.

“That’s what great players do,” Sloan said before the game. “They put it on and they go to another level. That’s all I’ve ever seen. That’s always kind of scary to talk about, but I have to be honest about it.”

This wasn’t Legendary Kobe lighting up the scoreboard. This was Just Enough Kobe who took 10 shots – which he usually has by halftime and sometimes by the second quarter – and still wound up with 26 points, seven assists and six rebounds, leading the Lakers to a 111-104 victory over the Jazz.

Six of his shots and nine of his points came in the first quarter.

The greatest closer in the game didn’t take a shot from the field in the fourth quarter, scoring three points, all on free throws in the closing seconds.

Afterward, he said his back was “really, really tight” although it had loosened up enough to try a dunk in the third quarter, on which he was fouled.

“I didn’t know if I could get high enough to do it,” Bryant said. “I kind of felt like Luke Walton.”

The Lakers lead the series, 3-2, going into Friday’s Game 6 in Salt Lake City … where the world will once more watch to see what Bryant can bring.

That’s after two days of discussion about Bryant’s back in the two off days before this game.

Sloan told his players about Michael Jordan in the pivotal Game 5 of the NBA Finals in 1997, so sick teammates had to help hold him up during timeouts, scoring 38 points and leading the Bulls back from a 16-point deficit to win, 90-88.

“I learned a lesson a long time ago,” Sloan said. “We tried to tell our guys Michael Jordan was sick [but] if he puts his uniform on, don’t worry about him being hurt. You’d better get ready to play the guy because he’s a great player and he’s got the ability to bury you a lot of different ways.”

As for Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, his approach to the entire issue was to make it a non-issue in the hope his team would play as if this was any other game.

Just to keep things in harmony, he was also succinct with the media beforehand, noting, “We haven’t talked about it as a team.”

“They do know about it, right?” asked Brad Turner of the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

“I think they’re aware of it; he’s been on the training table when they’ve been going through the locker room,” Jackson said. “That’s pretty obvious. [Grinning] But he’s on there a lot.”

It turned out Bryant’s back was an issue, all right, obliging him to be more of a playmaker.

“It was just read how you feel and play the game the way it has to be played,” Jackson said.

The Jazz, which had trailed by 17 and 15 points before halftime in Games 1 and 2, respectively, assumed the traditional position, going down by 12 points before halftime Wednesday night.

This time Utah caught up midway through the third quarter, tying the game on four occasions but, even with Bryant as playmaker/decoy, never taking the lead.

He was still close enough to being Kobe Bryant. It was still enough.