Bryant Can Literally Pad Stats in Victory

After offering a few postgame words to a TV camera, Kobe Bryant walked off the court and punched his chest with his left wrist, his good one, emblematic of a worthy effort in a typically, if not strangely, tough place for the Lakers to play.

Wearing a protective pad on his sprained right wrist, Bryant had 38 points, seven rebounds and seven assists as the Lakers defeated the Golden State Warriors, 110-104, Saturday at The Arena.

Bryant didn’t act alone -- Smush Parker tied a career-high with 24 points and Kwame Brown had an efficient 18 points and 12 rebounds -- to help the Lakers add a somewhat rare road victory to Phil Jackson’s total here.

Jackson was only 6-4 at Golden State during his first five seasons with the Lakers. He wasn’t around last season when the Lakers were drilled here, 126-99, on the way to a 2-19 finish to end the season.

“I reminded the players that their last game up here was not one that was a thing of beauty,” Jackson said, “and that they should remember the moments on the court that they had when they walked off here with a 40-point loss.”

It was only a 27-point loss, but point taken.

“The idea was just to win and keep in mind what happened the last time we were here,” said Bryant, who made 13 of 28 shots.

Bryant’s finish Saturday wasn’t quite as dramatic as his six-point show in the final 90 seconds of Thursday’s victory over Cleveland, but he did more than enough to keep distance between the Lakers and Warriors.

He made a turnaround from 19 feet to provide a 106-100 lead with 2:23 to play and then took a pass from Parker on a flash through the lane and put in a layup over Warrior center Adonal Foyle for a 108-100 lead with 1:17 left.

After the latter, he spread his arms and glided to the bench, airplane-style.

“I broke it out,” Bryant said. “It’s fun for us. You hit a big shot, come back down to the bench, your guys kind of get hyped about that stuff.”

Bryant played with a pad made of rubber and plastic on his right wrist, the result of a collision with Cleveland forward Sasha Pavlovic in Thursday’s game.

Neither Bryant nor Jackson seemed overly affected.

“I have a tendency just to ignore things like that because I think he plays through them well,” Jackson said. “He has control of what the injury is about and he’s capable of handling the amount of discomfort he has around it. I think we’ll be fine with that.”

Said Bryant: “[Trainer] Gary Vitti did a great job of coming up with something there that protected my hand. I got hit on it about five times in the first half. It hurt, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as if I didn’t have the Gary Vitti special.”

Bryant, who has been getting banged up continually in recent weeks, was angry after getting hit near the eye by Mike Dunleavy on a fastbreak midway through the third quarter. Bryant pointed heatedly at Dunleavy, was gently pushed aside by teammates, and made two free throws.

The Lakers came into the game with the league’s ninth-best defense, giving up 95 points a game, but they ended up trailing at halftime because of half-hearted defense.

The Lakers led by as many as nine in the half and made 24 of 41 shots (58.5%) but ended up trailing at the break, 60-59.

The Warriors maintained their one-point lead through three quarters, 85-84, until Bryant took over.

Brown had one of his best quarters as a Laker, making all four of his shots and taking four rebounds in the first quarter as the Lakers took a 34-28 lead. He continued from there, making his first six shots before missing a 17-footer with 6:12 left in the second quarter.

“The lord was with him,” Jackson said.

Parker was also an early part of the story, scoring 17 in the first half, including a highlight-worthy steal of an inbounds pass followed quickly by a dunk over Warrior center Ike Diogu in the second quarter.

“Smush really played up to that level,” Jackson said. “Things were flowing for him in a way that we haven’t seen too often this season.”

Lamar Odom, who just missed a triple-double against Cleveland, had only two points in 33 minutes, making one of eight shots.