Bryant Takes Lakers Higher

By TIM KAWAKAMI

Jan. 11, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

There was no suspense Monday, except, perhaps, to see when, or if, Kobe Bryant might choose to touch land again.

He was up there for a nice long while.

Through this starry night, Bryant hovered and jetted high up in the Kobe-sphere, tossing in savage slam dunks and three-point shots, escaping the bonds of gravity and occasionally appearing to skirt the borders of basketball heaven in a 30-point performance that included 17 in the first quarter and 27 by halftime.

A sellout Staples Center crowd witnessed an overload of Laker largeness--Shaquille O’Neal, for his part, had a career-high nine assists and would have racked up the second triple-double of his career if he hadn’t sat out most of the fourth quarter--and, it should be added, a 130-95 Laker victory over the Denver Nuggets.

Oh, some guy named Michael Jordan was there to see it too, which may or may not explain Bryant’s particularly supreme state of motivation.

Coach Phil Jackson, however, was relating Bryant’s performance to another artistic Mike.

“Well, he was Michelangelo tonight in many ways,” Jackson said. “He did some beautiful things out there on the court.”

Bryant, who also had four steals and seven rebounds, said that beating Denver--which beat the Lakers earlier this season--not Jordan, was the prime motivation.

“Nope,” Bryant said, when asked if some of his energy came from Jordan’s attendance. “It just so happens that I have good games whenever he’s here. He should start showing up more often.”

But Jackson, with a smile, said the obvious of Bryant’s reaction to Jordan: “I think he’s pumped up, yeah.

“He had a great sense of awareness, his timing was great, defense, and he did some offensive things that were spectacular.”

It was the biggest winning margin for the Lakers this season, the 130 points were their most this season. The 72 first-half points were the most they’ve had since scoring 76 in a half in 1997, and the 43 first-quarter points were a season high.

All in all, it was quite an emphatic way for the Lakers to expand their NBA-high winning streak to 15 games, their season record to 30-5, and their comparisons to history.

It was Bryant’s method, not so much his total, that shook the stands and had TV executives scurrying for the videotape.

“Start of the second half, he said, ‘All right, let the game come to you,’ ” Bryant said of Jackson. “I said, ‘I’m all right, Phil, I’m not going to go for 40 or 50. I got it.’

“I just really wanted to execute. We’ve got a tough road trip coming up, it was important to get the Xs and O’s down.”

Coming off a 31-point effort Saturday in which he made a career-high five three-pointers, Bryant made four more three-pointers Monday, including one 39-foot jump shot to beat the shot clock on the Lakers’ final possession of the first half.

He tossed in power dunks, reverse-dunks, levitating three-point plays and a few zigzag, behind-the-back, no-look passes along the way.

His final total came on 12-for-18 shooting; O’Neal finished with 31 points, 19 rebounds and five blocked shots.

Jackson said that he didn’t know O’Neal was only one assist away from the triple-double, and that he probably wouldn’t have put him back in even if he had known.

“I don’t like to do that for the sake of stats,” Jackson said. “I’d like to have it come naturally. I’d like to have him get a triple-double, it’s natural that he should.

“The way he’s playing, it’ll happen for him naturally. That’s something he can point to as a dramatic thing that shows his dominance in the game.”

The Lakers had a 25-point lead by the first quarter, the same 25-point lead at halftime, and reduced the entire second half to garbage time.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

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