If it is Christmas Day, it must be Miami time

It will be another Christmas Day on the job, eight in a row now for Kobe Bryant.

This will be the third consecutive against the Miami Heat, the league insisting on pitting Bryant against Shaquille O’Neal’s team, yet again, a rivalry that might continue to be played out in front of a national audience for ...

“All of eternity? I guess so. Pretty much,” Bryant said. “I see that in the commercials they run, they’re calling it ‘A Christmas Tradition.’ That doesn’t bode well for us.

“This is the second time in Miami. We’ve played once in L.A. Hopefully, next year it will be in L.A.”

This one will be without a key particular, an X-factor the league couldn’t have anticipated along with the Heat’s surprisingly slow start. O’Neal has been out since undergoing surgery five weeks ago for torn cartilage in his left knee, and the defending NBA champions have suffered as well, stumbling to a 12-14 record.

The Lakers, on the other hand, are a surprise of a different kind, soaring to an 18-9 record and a 2-1 mark on their current six-game trip without Lamar Odom.

The Bryant-O’Neal drama, a long-running saga dating to their time as teammates, had already begun to taper by the time they hugged briefly before the game at Staples Center in January. O’Neal doesn’t give many interviews these days, and Bryant’s have been non-inflammatory, as usual, when pertaining to the subject of O’Neal.

“For us, it’s just about winning the game,” Bryant said. “I think people are intrigued by the matchup of myself and [Dwyane] Wade, which is, I think, what a lot of people are excited about.”

*

Bryant was irritated with facets of his game, as well as some of his teammates’ play, while wheezing his way through a respiratory infection in the Lakers’ 99-95 victory over New Jersey on Friday.

Nets forward Vince Carter had 31 points through three quarters and got Bryant in foul trouble before Maurice Evans helped contain Carter to two points in the fourth quarter.

“[Bryant] was frustrated with some of the things that were going on out there,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “He likes to do a better job on Carter. His energy wasn’t as good as it could have [been]. There’s some things that went on in the course of the game. You could tell he was tired and a little bit disconcerted by that. But his play at the end, his ability to find people, set up some people out there that made some shots and hold our team together around him was really good.”

Bryant shot poorly, making four of 13 attempts, but had 11 assists.

“This is one of those teams that is just absolutely bent on me not scoring,” he said. “They just throw everything but the kitchen sink. The challenge that I have now is to make teams like this see that I can be just as big a threat passing the ball as I can scoring the ball.”

He was noticeably peeved late in the game when Vladimir Radmanovic passed the ball back out to him as the shot clock wound down after Bryant fed him in the post.

Bryant missed a hurried attempt with 15.9 seconds to play, and the Nets had a chance to tie the score. Carter missed a three-point attempt with 2.9 seconds left.

“He’s 6-10,” Bryant said of Radmanovic’s height. “I was teasing him about it in the locker room. He’ll catch on to that. When you get in that situation, you just power through there and get to the free-throw line.”

*

A problem at master control in Hollywood caused Channel 9 to not show the final 14 seconds of the Lakers’ victory over the Nets on Friday night, station manager Pat McClenahan said.

The telecast was tape-delayed and, according to McClenahan, after a commercial break the wrong tape was fed into the server that determines what goes out over the air. Viewers saw a repeat of what they had just seen, then the station went to another break.

*

Staff writer Larry Stewart contributed to this report.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com