Will Lakers survive, or be carried out on their shields?

El Kobe, the legend continues. . . .

As it was, so it is and, apparently, always will be, a 14-year career of swoops, plummets, admiration and scorn, leading up to last week’s new chapter:

Kobe Bryant as El Cid, the Spanish warrior, who supposedly told his troops to prop him up on his horse after he died and led a last charge that put their enemies to flight.

Playing the first four games against the Oklahoma City Thunder in seven days with a sore knee, Bryant was an imitation of himself by Game 4 before reinventing himself as a defender/playmaker for Game 5 . . . helped by two days off.

Happily for the Lakers, they had two more off before Game 6, when Bryant looked more like Kobe Bryant again, scoring 32 points.

Well, he looked like he will in two or three years, when he’s 33 or 34, anyway, scoring most of them on jump shots.

If Bryant’s whole career has been a high-wire act, now it’s like a high-wire act on horseback, with the Lakers on his shoulders.

A week ago, not even the Lakers coaches knew what he was physically capable of on any night.

They now live in the hope that Bryant’s right knee, which was being stimulated, massaged, iced, etc., on an around-the-clock basis, gets better.

The Lakers’ dread is that it keeps flaring up, as it did three times in April.

So, it wasn’t good news when they learned that Utah had eliminated Denver on Friday and, thanks to the miracle of modern TV programming, they would be playing the Jazz in Game 1 Sunday at 12:30 p.m., a 39-hour turnaround.

Under normal circumstances, the Lakers would be a solid pick over the Jazz, a comer like the Thunder, but older, which keeps coming until it runs into the Lakers, who have won 16 of 22 meetings over three seasons.

Of course, these days, you find out what the Lakers’ circumstances are daily.

The Lakers now play the schedule as much as the opposition. With the first two games of this series today and Tuesday, that will make three in the last five days for them.

After that, there’s a merciful three-day rest before Saturday’s game in Salt Lake City . . . after which it’s every other day for Games 4-6, four in seven days.

Mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma that Bryant is, I don’t think he’s saying any more about being hurt to teammates than he is to the media, so not even they knew how limited he was.

Derek Fisher, asked last week whether knowing they couldn’t depend on Bryant to bail them out had focused them more, said he wasn’t buying the assumption Kobe couldn’t ride to their rescue.

Then, of course, there was Bryant, musing matter-of-factly that he’d be putting up 45 or 50 if he didn’t have such a good supporting cast.

That turned out to be demonstrably wrong. In Game 6, with his supporting cast dormant, he went for only 32.

Coincidentally or not, the Lakers won the series with their gritty defense, holding the Thunder, which averaged 104 points in March and 111 in April, to 87 and 94 in Games 5 and 6.

If this series was a glimpse into the West’s future, everybody had better get ready to spend a lot of time in Oklahoma City, where the crowds are not only loud but rowdy. In Game 6, a fan behind the baseline broke up Lamar Odom, yelling, “Khlo-eee! Khlo-eee!”

Of course, the real problem for everyone will be the local team. One look at the Thunder and it was clear the Lakers are going to need more athletes, soon.

One already got away when Trevor Ariza, who’s 24 and fit perfectly with them, went to Houston for the same money the Lakers offered, obliging them to grab Ron Artest, who’s more like a 31-year-old square peg jammed into a round hole.

Nevertheless, Artest just earned this season’s $5.9-million salary, putting a crimp in Kevin Durant’s playoff debut, holding the player who averaged 30 points and shot 48% to 25 and 35%.

Yes, that’s the Kevin Durant whom Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi had shooting past Bryant — the “demented three-faced narcissist” — any day now.

Taibbi, a nationally known political writer, may have missed the importance of the postseason in the NBA, which is to the regular season what elections are to primaries.

“You talk about the triangle, you talk about the greatness of Kobe Bryant, but their defense bothers you,” said Thunder Coach Scott Brooks.

“At times it becomes intimidating because you can get by your man and you have a couple of 7-footers there that are protecting the basket.”

So far, anyway. Tune in to see who Kobe and the Lakers are today.

mark.heisler@latimes.com

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