Bryant Says Olympic Trip Is Unlikely

If Madagascar has a top-notch scoring guard, there could be some trouble . . .

Though he said he still hasn’t made his final decision, and won’t until after the season, Kobe Bryant repeated Sunday that it’s unlikely he would accept an invitation to replace the injured Grant Hill on the U.S. Olympic team.

“Right now, I’m leaning toward not going,” Bryant said. “There’s a lot I’d like to do this summer--spend time with my family, get married, relax. I haven’t given it much thought, really.”

Coach Phil Jackson said he doesn’t appreciate the pressure Bryant has been receiving by those in control of the process--NBC and the NBA--to add his star power to the Sydney Games on a U.S. team that is already an overwhelming favorite to win the gold medal.

“Absolutely not,” Jackson said when asked if he wanted to see Bryant participate.

“Kobe’s getting married this summer. It’s his personal time. This is something that should be special for him. He should make that choice according what’s going to set up his family or situation.”

To come to Bryant now, months after the original team was selected and with Bryant still nursing a sore left ankle, is not the right timing, Jackson said.

“They had an opportunity to get to Kobe long before this and before guys backed out of it, relatively speaking,” Jackson said. “If they wanted him as an alternative, they probably should’ve asked him last summer, if they have such things.

“But he’s made plans in his own personal life and he’s got to honor that.”

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Jackson said he wasn’t completely displeased with Bryant’s four-for-20 shooting performance in the Game 5 loss Friday.

“I didn’t think he tried too hard until the second half,” Jackson said. “His first half wasn’t great, but yet he still had a game, he was still going at it the right way, and making plays, doing the things that we ask him to do as a basketball player to set up the team.

“Then as the second half got going, things just didn’t fall his way and he got pressing a little bit hard. But that’ll happen.”

Said Ron Harper of Bryant: “He will respond in Game 6. I have faith in him all day.

“I’m not worried about him at all.”

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The key element the Lakers need to bring to this game, Jackson said, is more aggressiveness than they showed in Friday night’s 33-point bashing at Conseco Fieldhouse.

“I think it’s a physical matter,” Jackson said.

“They just physically came at us.

“We didn’t step in and take charges. . . . There were sequences where we just had to stop penetration by taking a charge . . . [We had to say] that you can’t overrun us here, we’re just going to get in your way and play basketball and a defensive posture.”