Bryant Is Home, Cooking With 41

A frightening prospect awaited the Lakers after their six-game trip.

A home game.

No longer surrounded by the comforts of frigid Milwaukee and sub-zero Toronto, the Lakers were back home again, not always such a warm place for them these days.

Then came Friday, and a third-quarter outburst from Bryant, allowing the Lakers to find Staples Center as hospitable as the road in a 97-91 victory over the Washington Wizards.

Bryant had 41 points, 18 in the third quarter, and the Lakers continued to build on their most successful long trip since February 2000.

“Played well on the road, now it’s time to do the same thing at home,” Bryant said.

The Lakers, 8-5 on the road after their surprising 5-1 swing, improved to 5-5 at home.

There were subplots aplenty, with Kwame Brown playing against his former team, and Chucky Atkins and Caron Butler returning to Staples Center, but Bryant’s name carried the game.

He was efficient, making 14 of 24 shots, and elusive when he needed to be.

The Lakers trailed at halftime, 47-42, but Bryant began to move them into the clear by making eight of 10 shots in the third quarter.

He split the Wizard defense for a dunk. He sank a three-pointer. He made a reverse layup.

He was good, and lucky, picking up a loose ball and making a 14-foot bank after Wizard guard Gilbert Arenas knocked the ball away from Chris Mihm.

“I just wanted to lead by example for my teammates,” Bryant said. “We were all a little bit tired. Sometimes you’ve got to will the ball in the basket, make it go in. I just wanted to show them.”

Laker Coach Phil Jackson tried to show them at halftime, wondering aloud if they had spent too much energy the previous day during a light practice and the annual holiday party at their El Segundo training facility.

After the game, Jackson used the dry-erase board to show how sorry he was.

“My apology for ‘half’ speech,” he wrote. “You still had some left.”

Lamar Odom had 14 points and 11 rebounds, and Devean George helped with 13 points. Brown, who spent four tumultuous seasons with the Wizards after they made him the top pick in the 2001 draft, had six points and nine rebounds against his former team.

Despite Bryant’s effort, the victory didn’t come easily.

Arenas was fouled by Brown while making a driving layup and added the free throw to bring the Wizards within 93-91 with 25.8 seconds left.

On the inbounds play, however, Odom found George behind the Wizard defense for a layup. Bryant then blocked Arenas’ three-point attempt and made two free throws to turn home into hope as the Lakers won for the seventh time in eight games.

“It should not have happened like that,” Wizard Coach Eddie Jordan said. “They just came off a six-game road trip and we thought we could bring the force and energy to them.”

The game marked a quasi-homecoming for Atkins and Butler, Lakers for a season who were sent to the Wizards as part of the Brown trade.

Atkins was booed mildly when he entered the game, some fans apparently remembering his derisive reference last season to Bryant as the team’s general manager.

Atkins, who last week suggested he should be traded because of a lack of playing time, had seven points. Butler was cheered when he checked into the game. He had 20 points.

In the end, the Lakers crept closer to respectability at home, where they were unimpressive this season after a pedestrian 22-19 record last season.

“Hope so,” Jackson said. “We’ve got a measure in front of us that we have to step up to and try to regain some kind of composure and some kind of home-court advantage.”