Injury Will Sideline Bryant Longer

Kobe Bryant will be out at least two more weeks because of a severely sprained right ankle, adding at least six games to the two he has already sat out, according to Laker officials.

“A lot of significant tenderness and pain,” Laker spokesman John Black said. “He’s making progress though.”

Bryant saw foot specialist Philip Kwong and team doctor Steve Lombardo on Monday, and he will be evaluated again early next week. A CT scan showed there was not a fracture, confirming previous X-rays.

Bryant, who sustained the sprain Thursday against Cleveland, attended Monday’s game against Utah and received treatment in the trainer’s room beforehand. He watched the game from a sofa in the players’ lounge, his right foot propped up.

“He came in for a couple days and it wasn’t getting better,” forward Caron Butler said. “He can finally put pressure on it. That’s good.”

Bryant’s injury is not considered a high ankle sprain, but it is painful regardless.

“When you roll up and over it like he did, you stretch a lot of stuff on the inside and outside of the ankle,” center Chris Mihm said. “It’s tough. He’s [been] the focal point of our offense for the first part of the season. Who knows, for the long run this might be good in terms of getting guys’ confidence up.”

Rookie Sasha Vujacic started a second consecutive game in place of Bryant, with Butler, Chucky Atkins and Lamar Odom getting their share of shots.

“It’s definitely a harder game [without Bryant], but it’s a good test for us,” said Odom, who used a football analogy. “You see a guy like [Tommy] Maddox go down, [Ben] Roethlisberger steps up. Sports, you never know.

“But I wish we had him out there. We’re a lot more confident with him out there.”

Until then?

“More high-tempo, more high-energy, we’ll be fine,” Butler said.

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Butler wasn’t the only one to receive a call from Bryant during halftime Saturday against Golden State.

Laker Coach Rudy Tomjanovich was handed a cellphone by Joe Carbone, the team’s strength and conditioning coach. On the other end was Bryant.

“He called at halftime and said, ‘Coach, I’m here pulling for ya,’ ” Tomjanovich said. “I let the guys know. I thought that was great.”

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Count Tomjanovich among the MTV generation. He referenced one of the network’s shows, anyway.

“There’s a closeness in this team,” he said. “My teams in Houston, I thought those guys were very close. In fact, they used to go on a trip in the summer with [former NBA center] Pig Miller driving a big Winnebago down to Florida. I think it would have been better than ‘Real World.’ ”

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With the victory Saturday against Golden State, Tomjanovich moved past K.C. Jones into 22nd place with 523 career coaching victories. Former Laker Coach Del Harris is 21st with 556 career victories.