Bryant Runs Afoul of Worthy Foe

While the Lakers brace themselves for, well, something, and while they insist there are good teams out there, and that they can be had by one of them if they don’t get their acts together, the blowouts keep coming.

The monster in the closet was not the Golden State Warriors, as it turned out. The Lakers beat them, 106-90, Friday night at Staples Center, and now the Lakers are 11-1, matching the best start in franchise history.

Kobe Bryant left the floor for good not halfway through the fourth quarter.

He strode past Coach Phil Jackson, who would not look up, then slapped hands with a kid who leaned over the railing and into the tunnel Bryant passed through.

The crowd booed and cheered, booed referee Bennie Adams, cheered Bryant’s defiant posture and the fact it would not see him again this game, 26 minutes and 28 points in.

Bryant was ejected for his second technical foul, the first coming three minutes into the fourth quarter for an elbow jab at Warrior guard Bobby Sura, the second a minute later for something he said to Adams.

It is Bryant’s new, chippy demeanor. He has six technical fouls already, a Rasheed-ian pace Jackson thought might have something to do with his new captaincy.

“He’s taking on his role as a captain, who’s licensed, or legitimized, to talk to referees,” Jackson said. “I hope [the talk] is not all on his own behalf.”

Bryant’s previous ejection was in an overtime win over the Clippers, last Dec. 30.

This time, Bryant left the Lakers with a 21-point lead.

The Lakers scored 100 points for the first time in six games, after a five-game offensive lull in which they averaged 92.2.

Twelve games into their season, the Lakers already have winning streaks of seven and four games.

Shaquille O’Neal scored eight points in the first quarter and nine in the third, and for the second consecutive game played short minutes. In them, O’Neal managed to enjoy himself.

In the third quarter, O’Neal took a defensive rebound, batted it, dribbled it, lunged for it, and, by the time the whistle blew, he was near half-court, on his stomach, literally swimming for the basketball, laughing with the crowd.

Earlier on, he stumbled into the mix of bodies beneath the basket. Before he extricated himself from the cameramen and courtside rich folk, O’Neal playfully smoothed his eyebrows.

Bryant scored 16 points in the first quarter, and appeared to be primed for another run at 50against the Warriors.

He scored 51 against them last season. Three early fouls and the ejection, however, ended that.

None of this could have come as a thunderbolt to the Warriors; the same thing happened to them three nights earlier in Oakland against the New York Knicks, an awful team.

The Knicks led, 55-25, at the half, after the Warriors scored seven second-quarter points, and then talked about learning that lesson, about how that couldn’t happen to a team that expected so much of itself.

Thus inspired, the Warriors missed 33 of 50 first-half attempts Friday and had 10 turnovers, four in their first five possessions.

The Lakers took three of those and turned them into, in order, a fast-break, two-handed dunk by Bryant, a fast-break, one-handed dunk by Lindsey Hunter and a reverse layup by Bryant.

The Lakers led, 14-1, then 20-5, then 31-12, then 56-29.

O’Neal, whose pregame X-rays on his sore right big toe were negative, played four minutes of the second quarter, which was plenty. The Lakers led, 62-40, at halftime, and he hadn’t sweat yet.

Then there was the saga of Erick Dampier, the Warrior center.

Not, apparently, a Warrior center. The Warrior center.

In over his head against O’Neal, Dampier committed his first foul at 6:36 of the first quarter and his second at 3:19 of the first. He stayed in the game.

He committed his third foul at 1:47 of the second. And stayed in the game.

He committed his fourth at 3:15 of the second.

And Warrior Coach Dave Cowens sat, arms folded, legs crossed, not five feet from Adonal Foyle and/or Marc Jackson, emergency centers, but centers nonetheless.