Bryant Has Healthy Approach to Game 3

Kobe Bryant made it through an entire practice Thursday afternoon without requiring a mop, and then declared himself sort of healthy and definitely well enough to play tonight, when the Lakers and Sacramento Kings reconvene for Game 3 of the Western Conference finals at Staples Center.

The best-of-seven series is tied at a game apiece, the Lakers having lost Game 2 in part because of a bad bacon cheeseburger Bryant consumed while in Sacramento last weekend, or so it appeared.

After trudging out of HealthSouth Center with his shoulders curled and his face drawn Wednesday, Bryant was much more lively 24 hours later at Staples Center. Along with participating in the required practice, Bryant played a light game of half-court four-on-four afterward, then shot free throws and ran by himself.

He is on antibiotics and anti-cramp medication, a combination that soothed his stomach and made him quite optimistic for Game 3.

“I feel fine,” he said. “I feel I can do everything I was doing before I was sick. It’s just a matter of getting my conditioning back.”

While he admitted, “This is one of the tougher things I’ve had to go through,” he appeared stronger and more energetic than at any point, pre-room service. He laughed politely at the terribly strained attempts at humor by the dozens of media folks that ringed him, more than could be asked even of a perfectly hale superstar.

Asked if he had eaten anything recently, Bryant shook his head, smiled and said, “I’m going to have a burger after this.”

The training staff has asked him to keep his intake simple, more along the lines of the bread-rice-apple-toast diet, BRAT to the parents of loose children everywhere, but he keeps threatening to swing through the service window at McDonald’s.

In the throes of the food poisoning, Bryant scored 22 points in 40 wobbly legged minutes Monday, slept most of Tuesday, then regressed Wednesday. He said he did not regret attempting to push himself in Wednesday’s practice. It is his nature, after all.

“You never know,” he said. “I’m going to have to run on it eventually anyway. Might as well give it a test every day, see how I felt. [Wednesday] I wasn’t able to go. Today I feel fine.”

His post-practice sprints Thursday were an attempt to reclaim his conditioning. He was understandably fatigued in parts of Monday’s game, and hadn’t done much running since.

“I won’t know until I get out there,” Bryant said. “I’ll get a lot of fluids in me. I was out here earlier running some lines, trying to get my wind back, trying to get my legs back. Hopefully, [Friday] I’ll be ready.”

Laker Coach Phil Jackson, who might not admit concern anyway, said Bryant eased into practice, but that he was active thereafter.

“Well, he shot airballs at the start. It looked like he hadn’t played basketball in a summer,” Jackson said. “But he got into it and he was pretty good. We told him to have some chicken soup, he’d be fine.

“What I have to watch is how strong he is in the ... second half, so he can finish the game strong. I’ll just use that as a barometer.”

Often at his most aggressive in the final quarter, Bryant took two shots and had three turnovers in nine fourth-quarter minutes Monday. The Lakers went primarily to Shaquille O’Neal, who missed five of seven shots and five of eight free-throw attempts, also in nine minutes.

“I’ve got to kind of pace myself, especially when I’m low on energy the first, second, third quarters,” Bryant said. “I’ll just try to pace myself a lot more than I normally do.”

It won’t be easy against the Kings, who prefer a faster pace in the most mundane circumstances.

“They do what they do,” Bryant said. “They have the perfect game suited for somebody that’s sick. They just run the hell out of you anyway.”

The Lakers expect to find their usual Bryant tonight, along with the rest of their usual game. They were disgusted by their decisions in Game 2, taking 19 three-point shots (and missing 16). Rick Fox and Robert Horry shot well, but Derek Fisher (one for nine) didn’t, and the bench provided little.

“We didn’t lose that game because Kobe was shaky,” O’Neal said. “But we’re at home now. Our chefs. Our food. Our wives. Some of the people who were our fans a couple years ago have switched up. But we’re home now.”

Still, O’Neal said, “[Bryant] doesn’t like to have two subpar games in a row.”

The Lakers focused this week on getting the rest of the team involved, in particular avoiding hindrances such as Monday’s third quarter, when they scored 17 points and put themselves in a deficit they never made up.

The Lakers would like to have their old Bryant back, particularly the one who does dynamic things in the fourth quarter and scores 30 points and drags defenses away from O’Neal. If not, they’re pretty sure they have a plan.

“If we get the same effort from Kobe again, sick or not sick, and we change things that we did that we shouldn’t have done, or do them better, then we win the game,” Fox said.