Magic Makes Defense Vanish

The Lakers cranked up their offense Friday night, with Kobe Bryant scoring 41 of their season-high 113 points.

So much for the good news.

Stopping the Orlando Magic, one of the league’s worst shooting teams, appeared to be merely optional in a 122-113 loss before an exuberant crowd of 17,283 at TD Waterhouse Centre.

Bryant, tender left foot and all, did his part, but the Lakers had not given up this many points in a non-overtime game since December 1995, seven months before Shaquille O’Neal changed addresses from here to Los Angeles.

The Magic came into the game as the league’s second-worst three-point shooting team but made 12 of 22 behind the arc, many coming off open looks.

And the Magic played without starters Cuttino Mobley and Kelvin Cato.

“We gave them way too many wide-open looks,” center Chris Mihm said. “It needs to be fixed pretty quickly.”

Grant Hill, hampered by ankle problems in his first three seasons in Orlando, had 27 points and 12 rebounds and made some big baskets down the stretch.

The Magic had 93 points and a 13-point lead by the end of the third quarter. Pat Garrity and Hedo Turkoglu, career peri- meter players, combined for 44 points, 27 from three-point range.

Orlando point guard Steve Francis, when he wasn’t scoring any of his 32 points, would penetrate, draw in the Laker defense and find an open shooter on the outside.

It happened again and again and again.

“We kind of let them score a little easy,” Lamar Odom said. “We’ve got to make it hard for their guys in a half-court situation. I don’t think we did.”

Bryant made 14 of 31 shots, had eight assists and seven rebounds. He said afterward his foot felt a little sore, but he looked decisive and determined on the court.

Twice in the first quarter, he took a defensive rebound and dribbled upcourt without hesitation, quickly starting up possessions that led to points.

And in the final two minutes of the third, Bryant went around a screen, beat Garrity with a cross-over dribble and elevated for a dunk over rookie Dwight Howard.

But Bryant and the Lakers were left explaining how an 18-point lead in the second quarter became a 57-55 halftime deficit.

“There are going to be times where we have games like this,” Bryant said. “It is a sequence of things. It was the flow of the game and us playing together for the first time and being a young team. That is something we will figure out.”

The final numbers were numbing.

The Laker bench was outscored, 54-13. The Lakers gave up a staggering 17 offensive rebounds, and 25 second-chance points to go with it.

“Right now, I can tell the scouting report against us is to shoot it and send five guys to the glass and crash it,” Odom said.

Despite it all, the Lakers managed to pull within 108-104 on a free throw by Bryant with 4:30 left to play. But Garrity made a three-pointer and the Lakers never again cut the deficit below five.

It won’t get easier for the Lakers, who play in Houston tonight, their fourth road game in five nights.

Even more imposing, it will be the second game of a back-to-back situation, a problematic setting so far for the Lakers, who lost their previous two back-to-back finales by an average of 24.5 points.

“It’s an uphill battle,” said Bryant, sizing things up. “But if you don’t like uphill battles, you don’t like life.”