A Breeze Feels Cool to Lakers

Jerry Buss predicted it, almost insisted it would happen, pegging the Lakers as a playoff team when few others would dare think such a thing back in October.

It isn’t official yet, and the Laker owner can’t quite say, “I told you so,” but the Lakers made another move toward the postseason, beating the Golden State Warriors, 111-100, Tuesday at Staples Center.

Knocking off a weaker opponent was a problem area not that long ago, but the Lakers took it to the sagging Warriors as if their playoff lives depended on it.

Kobe Bryant had 31 points, Kwame Brown had 15 points and a season-high 15 rebounds, and Lamar Odom completed his first triple-double as a Laker -- 15 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists.

An added bonus took place up north, where Sacramento managed to lose a 17-point lead in a 123-110 home loss to Phoenix, allowing the Lakers to take a one-game lead for seventh place in the Western Conference. The Lakers have three games left and are three games ahead of ninth-place Utah, which has five left to play.

“I can feel it,” Odom said. “You can feel the energy in the crowd, the energy everywhere. Everyone’s getting excited. It’s a beautiful thing to be part of.”

Odom played well Sunday against the Clippers -- 23 points and 15 rebounds -- although Laker Coach Phil Jackson wanted more against the Warriors.

“Lamar has had a lot of difficulty with the Golden State Warriors, actually, more difficulty with Golden State than he did with the Clippers,” Jackson said before the game. “He’s probably averaging eight points a game against Golden State.”

He was being generous: Odom had averaged only six points against the Warriors in three games this season, all Laker victories.

So Odom unveiled perhaps his best all-around game as a Laker, capping it with a reverse layup around Warrior center Andris Biedrins near the end of the third quarter. He finished with the ninth triple-double of his career, finally getting one after several close calls in his 140 other games as a Laker.

“I needed it,” Odom said. “I missed so many, right?”

Bryant, well on the way to his first scoring title, wasn’t bad either. He had averaged 43.4 points on 50.6% shooting in the previous five games, and appeared to be on the way to at least that with 30 points on 10-for-19 shooting in the first half.

He had only one point in the second half, all that was needed on a mostly breezy Laker night that wasn’t without its moments of tension.

Bryant stayed down on the court for more than a minute, wincing and grabbing his left shin after appearing to get kicked there by Warrior center Adonal Foyle on a drive with 2:29 left until halftime. Bryant gingerly walked off the court, returned after a timeout and made one of two free throws, another ache and pain to join the rest of his ailments this season -- a sore ankle, wrist, knee, back, calf and hip, among others.

Bryant said he didn’t think about leaving.

“I’m not a chump,” he said.

Buss, who also predicted last October that Bryant would have a stellar season -- “Kobe, I think, is going to be sensational,” he said at the time -- was equally confident the Lakers would play past April 19.

“I believe we’ll make the playoffs,” he said after the team finished training camp. “I have a lot of confidence in that. How well we go beyond that, there’s a couple of key factors. Kwame. Can Smush [Parker] hold his own as a starting guard with a premier franchise?”

Brown continued to emerge in the absence of Chris Mihm, and Parker had 18 points and four steals.

The Warriors, a trendy playoff pick before the season began, have lost nine consecutive games on the way to settling near the bottom of the West. Surprisingly, it looked as if they were the ones chasing a playoff spot early in the game, Dunleavy scoring 11 points as Golden State took the first quarter, 33-23.

But the Lakers won the second quarter, Bryant scoring 19 points in it, including a driving layup with 0.2 of a second left for a 62-56 Laker lead.