Bryant Gets 40, Winks

Kobe Bryant stood between the issues and the dramas again, flung himself at the game, scored his 40th point, winked at a young fan and flipped him a damp wristband Sunday evening.

The Lakers stood between the intrigue and injuries, played a few decent quarters, brought Gary Payton along, and defeated the Phoenix Suns, 104-92, at America West Arena.

They were three, instead of two, the Lakers now integrating superstars as they need them, even on a night Bryant was breathtaking. Bryant, who scored 16 points in the fourth quarter, had seven rebounds and five assists to go along with his second 40-plus-point game of the season. Shaquille O’Neal had 19 points and Payton, under orders from O’Neal, had 20.

“I told him to take over, to go ahead and get his,” O’Neal said of Payton, “while I just chill out.”

And while that meant 19 shots for Payton, and a 58-point second half by the Lakers that Coach Phil Jackson marveled at, in the end it was about Bryant, who made 15 of 25 shots, the last over his shoulder, over his head, for 40.

“Health,” Bryant said. “Health. I’m healthy. Because of that, I’m able to move around the floor the way I like to, to be athletic and quick.”

He said he came out of the All-Star break fresh, perhaps both in mind and body. He also added a somewhat reliable left hand, nurtured over first-half injuries to his right shoulder and right index finger, and a bank shot from the wing that, for a week, has been solid from 17 feet in.

It’s his baby, the new bank shot, learned, he said, over the weekend watching Tim Duncan.

“I just keep getting better,” Bryant said frankly. “Seems like every time we have an All-Star game, I learn something new from one of the guys.”

Meanwhile, the Lakers have won four consecutive games, their first streak of such length since they won 10 in a row to reach 18-3. O’Neal is smiling, if not entirely giddy. Payton was pleased to be a part of it again, after occasionally having his game overrun by the Original Two. At 84-74 Lakers, Bryant, O’Neal and Payton had scored 36 of the team’s 38 second-half points. Bryant, by then, had 32.

In the Lakers’ last four wins, all coming out of the break, Bryant has averaged 33.5 points and made 59.8% of his field-goal attempts. And O’Neal hasn’t peeped. In fact, he said, Bryant has much more left in him.

“I think he can do better,” O’Neal said. “Right now, he’s just slowly getting it back.”

The four wins, and six of seven overall, occupy the same so-so place, he said.

“We’re just doing what we’re supposed to do,” O’Neal said. “I’m not really impressed.”

The Suns had lost seven consecutive games, four at home and the next three on the road. Into the fourth week of February, they’d won once in the month. Antonio McDyess, activated Friday, did not play. Keon Clark, acquired the day before, is still hurt.

The Laker resurgence has come against Portland, Golden State, Philadelphia and, now, the Suns, looking rattier by the moment.

So, they surrounded O’Neal with two or three defenders, the Lakers stopped making jump shots, and O’Neal became a well-paid defender and screen-setter, the kind of typecasting he disdains.

In two possessions in the third quarter, O’Neal had his layup attempt blocked by Jahidi White and dashed back on defense, only to have Joe Johnson drive to his chest and score on a runner.

The abuse appeared not to sit well with O’Neal, and it roused the Lakers, who outscored the Suns, 24-13, through the end of the quarter. O’Neal scored nine points in the run and then sat with four fouls, and the Lakers finished the Suns seven or eight minutes into the fourth quarter.

In the second half, the Lakers made 60.5% of their field-goal attempts, all three of their three-point tries and nine of 10 free throws.

“I don’t know if we can play much better than we did in the second half,” Jackson said.

Payton thought different, because there’s more to come.

“It feels good, because we’re starting to get in a rhythm now,” Payton said. “As soon as Karl [Malone] gets back, we’ll just try to fit him in, and we’ll be fine.”