Bryant Says He Could Have Grooved to 80

The “what-ifs” blew across the Southland like the Santa Ana winds Wednesday. As in, “What if Kobe Bryant actually played the entire game against the Dallas Mavericks?”

Bryant scored a career-high 62 points Tuesday night against visiting Dallas despite playing only three quarters in a 112-90 blowout victory.

Bryant originally balked at speculating on how many points he might have totaled had he played the fourth quarter, then threw out a figure that has been surpassed only once in NBA history, a historic 100-point effort by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962.

“Probably 80,” Bryant said. “I was in a really, really good groove.”

Bryant did match the highest-scoring NBA game since Tracy McGrady’s 62 in March 2004 and produced the most points since David Robinson scored 71 against the Clippers to secure the 1993-94 season scoring title. Bryant’s 30-point effort in the third quarter was a franchise best and the fourth highest in league history.

“I didn’t even know I had that type of quarter until I sat down on the bench and just let it sink in,” Bryant said. “I didn’t think about really what was going on. I just kept attacking and attacking.”

Coach Phil Jackson gave Bryant the opportunity to re-enter the game with about nine minutes remaining, but Bryant declined.

“I know people in our town, particularly, like to see Kobe have a game like that, we all do,” Jackson said. “Kobe could have attacked if it was a game that was meaningful, flawless and had some competitive zest to it, but that 30-plus [lead] at that time, it wasn’t meaningful.”

Even Bryant’s teammates found themselves watching in disbelief. Andrew Bynum, an 18-year-old rookie, said he was too young to remember Michael Jordan’s career-high 69-point game in 1990 or Robinson’s 71.

“That was incredible,” Bynum said. “I had never seen anything like that.”

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Bryant and Jackson agreed that the team’s dismal effort against the Houston Rockets two days earlier provided much of the motivation for Bryant’s offensive explosion.

Bryant took only 13 shots in a 76-74 loss to visiting Houston and the remaining Lakers combined to shoot only 33% from the field.

“We showed tape of the Houston game, where he had situations where he had multiple chances to go individually,” Jackson said. “He moved the ball and the players ahead were not as successful.”

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Lost in the shuffle of Bryant’s performance was the stellar defensive effort by the Lakers.

Dallas came into the game with the third-best record in the NBA and the best road record in the Western Conference (8-3).

The Mavericks were shooting 46.9% from the field coming in but were held to 37% against the Lakers, resulting in their most one-sided loss of the season.

“The big game I had offensively almost overshadowed what we did defensively,” said Bryant, who scored 43 points at Dallas on Dec. 12.

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Draft pick Ronny Turiaf signed with the Yakima (Wash.) Sun Kings of the CBA, another step in his rehabilitation process.

Turiaf, 22, was cleared Monday to play by Laker doctors, but he needs to work on conditioning and skill level before the Lakers sign him. His first game with the Sun Kings probably will be Monday against the Idaho Stampede.

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Guard-forward Laron Profit suffered a ruptured left Achilles’ tendon Tuesday night and will have surgery in the coming days.

The Lakers, who are without injured forward Slava Medvedenko for another two months and guard Aaron McKie for approximately two more weeks, cannot sign a new player, despite the injuries, unless a fourth player is injured, per league rules. The Lakers have the option of waiving an injured player, but that’s not a consideration at this point.