LOS ANGELES, 15 January 2005 — When Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant sprained his ankle, his teammates fought even harder.
Lamar Odom scored 24 points, and Caron Butler added 21 and 11 rebounds as the Lakers overcame Bryant’s early loss to hold off the visiting LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers 98-94 last night.
“We rely on Kobe a lot,” Butler said. “He’s one of the best players to ever play the game. Without him out there, we couldn’t afford to linger around. We had to pick it up another notch, immediately.”
Bryant grabbed a rebound with 5:19 left in the opening quarter but collapsed holding his right ankle after landing awkwardly on the foot of Cavaliers Ira Newble.
The league’s second leading scorer (28.2 points per game) was carried to the locker room by teammates, where X-rays were negative, but revealed a severely sprained right ankle. “I’m in pain right now,” Bryant said afterwards. “It’s the worst one I’ve ever had.”
Bryant was fitted for a splint, and is scheduled to have a magnetic resonance imaging test on Friday, to determine whether he has sustained any ligament damage.
“The worst you can is that I have a couple of tears in there, so it’s not season-ending by any means,” he added. “It’s just rest and recuperation. I’m happy that it’s just an MRI tomorrow, it’s no fracture or anything like that. Guys will hold down the fort, and I’ll come back ready to play.”
LeBron James just missed his first career-triple double, finishing with 28 points, a season-high 13 rebounds and nine assists as Cleveland had its four- game winning streak snapped. Jeff McInnis added 20 points while Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 13 points and 15 rebounds.
During half-time, the classy and concerned 20-year-old James went over to the Lakers’ locker room to check on Bryant’s condition.
“I wanted to see how he was doing, and he told me,” James said. “Sounds like he is going to be out for a little while. I hope he gets well soon, because he’s been like an idol to me.”
The Cavaliers took their last lead, 87-86, on Eric Snow’s 3- pointer with 2:41 to go. But Odom’s basket and two free throws by Chucky Atkins put the Lakers ahead 90-87 with 1:38 remaining.
The Lakers experienced some anxious moments though. Ahead 94-88 with 22.4 seconds remaining, McInnis and James buried 3-pointers around a free throw by Jumaine Jones at the other end to draw the Cavaliers within one point with 9.8 seconds to go.
After Butler split two free throws, James looked to hit the potential game-winning 3-pointer but missed from the right wing. Odom grabbed the rebound, was fouled, and made both free throws with 1.8 seconds, to seal the Lakers third win in the last four games.
“We got everybody to make plays, and we knocked our free throws down at the end,” said Odom, who added eight rebounds and seven assists.
“We got this one for Kobe.”
Rockets 94 Nets 85: Bob Sura scored five of his career-high 35 points in overtime, including the game- clinching 3-pointer with 1:02 left, lifting the Rockets to a season- tying high third straight victory.
Juwan Howard scored eight of his 12 points in the extra period when Houston (19-17) outscored visiting New Jersey, 13-4, to move two games above — 500 for the first time this season. Tracy McGrady added 18 points, but foul-plagued Yao Ming managed a season-low six points, to go along with nine rebounds and five turnovers.
Vince Carter had 17 points, while Jason Kidd finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in New Jersey’s third straight loss.
Kings 107 Jazz 93: Peja Stojakovic scored 27 points while Chris Webber collected 23 points and 15 rebounds, helping the host Kings cool of the giant-killer Jazz.
Brad Miller had 21 points on 9-of-10 shooting for short-handed Sacramento, which played without starting point guard Mike Bibby (sprained ankle) and newly-acquired Cuttino Mobley.
Carlos Boozer had 15 points, nine rebounds and seven assists for Utah, which snapped a nine-game slide earlier this week by stunning powerhouses San Antonio and Phoenix.
Prior to the game, the Jazz decided to delay the return of All-Star forward Andrei Kirilenko until further re-evaluation.
Sidelined with a sprained ligament in his right knee since November 27, the Russian was scheduled to play on Saturday against Cleveland. Sloan changed his mind, however, as he did not want to rush his best player back too soon.
