Bryant could not break free to get a look, thereby forcing World Peace to seek an alternate option. He made the right pass. It was an uncontested shot. Blake caught it cleanly and got his shot off. He just flat-out missed it. Durant rebounded the ball and was fouled.

The Lakers carried a slim three-point lead into the fourth quarter, and Mike Brown’s defense effectively kept the Thunder out of the paint and off of the glass. Oklahoma City settled for jumpers time and again … until it counted. James Harden then made several drives into the lane to close the gap and ultimately set up the final sequence that will be dissected 1,000,000 ways tomorrow.

Los Angeles nearly evened the series and stole home field advantage despite shooting just 38.5% from the field and converting 2-of-15 three-point attempts. Bryant shot just 9-of-25, including 0-for-6 from three-point range, and attempted two free throws (2-for-2). He finished the night with 20 points. Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol combined for 34 points and 20 rebounds.

Bryant committed a pair of critical turnovers down the stretch that will be the subject of much scrutiny, and he was actually working away from the basket on the inbounds play that resulted in the Steve Blake shot.

The Lakers failed to score in their final six possessions and settled for a number of long jumpshots.

It will be a long flight back to Los Angeles, where the Lakers will host the Thunder for back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday night.

The Lakers must have heeded those words on Monday night, as Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal series was nothing short of a bloodbath. Oklahoma City took a 15-point lead into halftime … and then it got ugly. The Thunder outscored the Lakers by 15 points in the third quarter, thereby making the fourth quarter academic.

Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant combined for 52 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists in the blowout victory.

Los Angeles played for the fifth time in nine nights, and it showed. The quick-hit, fast-paced Oklahoma City offense controlled the pace, shot the lights out from three-point range early in the third quarter (53% from the field overall) and committed only four turnovers, a number that you will hear referenced one million times in the next 48 hours.

Everyone waited for the response to Metta World Peace (Ron Artest) in Oklahoma City following the James Harden incident from the regular season. His “I don’t shake hands with subs” ranks among the greatest one-liners that we’ve heard in quite some time. Embrace your inner villain, I say. Harden scored 17 points on 4-for-11 shooting with nine free throws.

All season, the knock on the Lakers (inconsistent play from their 7-footers aside) was their bench. That wasn’t the case on Monday night. The Lakers’ starters all finished the game with a +/- of -19 or worse.

Blame it on tired legs from the Lakers, if you must. The Thunder certainly exhibited no rust, as some might have anticipated, coming out of their extended break. Fresh legs, young legs and hot shooting — a recipe for disaster if you’re a fan of the Lakers.

I posted this to my Twitter account (@swollendome):

At least Kobe, Bynum & Gasol only had to play 32, 30 and 30 minutes, respectively … #silverlinings

Game 2 is set for Wednesday. Mike Brown, under fire for needing seven games to eliminate the Nuggets, is going to need an answer for Russell Westbrook.

Well, Kobe was then forced to don a face mask in the subsequent games. He played in 11 games and scored his 29,000th career point behind the mask. Now, Bryant is auctioning off the mask to benefit the “Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Fund” on eBay. As of this writing, the mask is sitting at $2,550 with six days remaining.

Buy the Mask

I have a question. Has the mask been scrubbed clean, or might there be some DNA where you could go “Jurassic Park” and try to create a new Kobe?

Fans of the Los Angeles Lakers eagerly anticipated Thursday’s trade deadline. For weeks, local newspaper columnists, radio and television personalities shouted from the rooftops about the team’s need for a point guard. They pondered what appeared to be the likely departure of Pau Gasol and dissected his every movement on the court while questioning his focus and “emotional state.”

As the countdown clicked down into the final minutes, fans celebrated the arrival of Ramon Sessions from the Cleveland Cavaliers (10.5 points and 5.2 assists per game). They held their collective breath in anticipation of a note from Chris Mannix, Adrian Wojnarowski or another NBA reporter to trumpet the arrival of Michael Beasley or another big chip in exchange for the aforementioned Gasol. The myriad stories and starts and stops concerning Dwight Howard provided some extra drama.

The trumpets might have sounded, but you’d swear they were playing “Taps” by the tone of the local broadcasters and callers. Any happiness about the acquisition of Sessions was muted by the amount of hand-wringing over the loss of Derek Fisher. Of course, that flew squarely in the face of months of pining for a “real” point guard and the relegation of Fisher to the bench.

The overall thinking appears to be that Fisher was the only leader in the locker room. I understand that he occupied a leadership role, both in the Los Angeles locker room and with the union. But, the thinking that the team is now devoid of leaders in Fisher’s absence (along with the departure of longtime Laker and fan favorite Luke Walton) makes me take pause.

These are professionals. Somebody’s going to step up (I hate that phrase) into that role.

• You mean to tell me that Kobe Bryant will not lead his team? He may not be the diplomat that Fisher was, but he’s not going to sit idly by. Bryant’s relationship with his coach is something to be dissected (everybody did it after Sunday’s timeout situation), but it’s still HIS team. Phil Jackson is not walking through that door.

* I should note that Bryant did cancel a scheduled radio appearance on the Lakers’ flagship season just moments after the Fisher trade was made official.

• Hell, Andrew Bynum is young, but he is in his seventh NBA season.
• Pau Gasol has had every reason to be salty. He was actually traded earlier this season, yet he’s battled through while averaging a double-double (16.6 points and 10.4 assists per game).

The shock response needs to be taken down a few levels. Everyone loves Fisher. He’s made some of the biggest shots in this era of Lakers basketball. He’s an aging point guard who is regularly beaten off the dribble and hurts them defensively.

Hell, it’s still possible that the Rockets buy him out and he finds his way back to Los Angeles at the veteran minimum before this season ends. It’s never easy to say goodbye. Many fans wanted to see Fisher given the opportunity to ride out the season and whatever playoff run was to come to let things draw to a natural finish.

Fisher will eventually get his spot at the podium and the celebration that Lakers fans want. Someone will start the petition to get him a statue made outside STAPLES Center on Friday morning. It will come in due time.

For now, the Lakers and Kobe Bryant are trying to chase a top spot in the West and make a run at another title with Sessions at the point.

ITSD 2.21

Odom home up for sale

For now, Lakers fans need to pause and take a deep breath. A deal might eventually get consummated to send Odom and his reality show out of town. Odom and his wife, Khloe Kardashian, own a home in Tarzana. If that “For Sale” sign passes my desk, then we’ve got a real story.

It’s an issue that deserved its own place in this age of negativity.

Despite the importance of the issue being discussed in this forum, there was another topic on the minds of the reporters gathered at the center. Kobe Bryant didn’t want to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room.

Bryant has yet to issue a public statement regarding the Lakers’ hiring of Mike Brown to succeed Phil Jackson on the bench. Brown has done seemingly every radio show in the past week and even hit “Lopez Tonight” on Tuesday night. He’s spoken of having an open dialogue with Bryant since the Lakers’ offer was extended.

Bryant refused to get into a discussion about the coaching change on Tuesday. He replied tersely to questions about Brown with “this is neither the time or the place.” It was his standard answer to the first question and any follow-ups.

The Los Angeles media has speculated that Bryant is chapped because he wasn’t consulted about the hire. Players had openly campaigned for Brian Shaw, an assistant to Phil Jackson, to get the gig. The Lakers’ unceremonious departure from the NBA Playoffs certainly didn’t help Shaw’s cause.

Now fans are left wondering whether the sweep has left the team fractured. Clearly nobody expected Bryant to be in a particularly good mood when discussing basketball, but the stern dismissal of questions raised many eyebrows. He had the forum to get his message out and discuss the foundation that he and his wife had established. It’s most certainly a worthy and noble effort on his part as a leader in this community.

It’s just unfortunate that his refusal to answer this line of questioning deflects attention from the cause. The charitable work becomes a side story to the questions that Bryant didn’t answer here.

Those answers would have been featured in separate blogs, news reports and radio chatter. Now, the charity story reads as the undercard.

Is there a fight to come?

The Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation was founded to shine a spotlight on a growing epidemic given the continued rough economic climate. My Friend’s Place is among the countless non-profit organizations hit by budget cuts, cuts that required a cut-back in hours during the week. It is currently closed on weekends. Bryant’s involvement may help them turn things around and expand programming and services.

You can read more about the center’s services and challenges, including quotes from the center’s director of development and Bryant from the press conference here .

The Lakers were dumped from the playoffs unceremoniously by the Mavericks and went out with several cheapshots from Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum (after Ron Artest had given J.J. Barea a forearm shiver in Game 2).

The Pau Gasol sub-plot intrigued tabloid journalists everywhere.

I don’t need to belabor the discussion of the Dodgers. The McCourt divorce has eroded the glory of a once-proud franchise and has beaten down the fanbase.

Then, an interview appeared in The Sporting News with UCLA and NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that addressed, only briefly, his omission in the run of statues being constructed outside Staples Center. The discussion about the statue expanded in the Twitter-verse (@kaj33) and spilled into one of the hottest topics in the blogosphere and on sports radio.

On Thursday afternoon, “The Captain” joined “The Petros & Money” show on FOX Sports Radio to discuss the statue issue, his “On the Shoulders of Giants” film (available for streaming on Netflix on Friday and the future of the Lakers. Abdul-Jabbar spoke about his work with Andrew Bynum and spoke candidly about his growing frustration with the franchise.

Check it out.

Here’s the audio.

Phil answers regarding his relationship with Lakers management

Add to the tepid defensive play the fact that the Lakers’ shot horribly from the outside and failed to initiate an inside-outside game and you’ve got a meltdown at Staples Center. Los Angeles missed their first 15 three-point shots, and the aforementioned Blake went 0-for-5 on the night.

Take it another step down the line. Kobe Bryant was quiet at times and got to the free throw line only five times. He shot 9-of-20 from the field (1-for-5 from three-point range) and finished with 23 points.

But forget about Bryant for a moment. I won’t even get into the Derek Fisher and Steve Blake stuff on a larger level here.

1. Pau Gasol didn’t match the intensity of Brendan Haywood and Tyson Chandler.
2. Ron Artest will most definitely get suspended for Game 3 after his bone-headed move to clothesline J.J. Barea in the final minute of the game. Artest had been visibly frustrated on an earlier rebound attempt and took a cheap shot to Barea (the source of much of the Lakers’ frustration on Wednesday).
3. Finally, Andrew Bynum talked of the team having “trust” issues. Was he speaking of the defensive help, as Kobe Bryant suggested? Or, was he getting into something deeper about the offensive sets and the team’s infatuation with long-distance tries?

We’ll get some kind of answer in Dallas. Artest won’t be there to take the test.

Welcome to playoff basketball.

With the usual smile that accompanies the “why do I have to do this?” thought bubble, Phil Jackson compared the game to “mud wrestling” in his interview with Cheryl Miller. I particularly enjoyed the one-word “No” answer when asked if Pau Gasol had been more aggressive in Game 2.

The Lakers did a fantastic job in closing out and bodying Chris Paul and, his two buzzer-beaters excepted, he was held in check. Paul converted 5-of-11 shots from the field and 8-of-12 from the free throw line (20 points).

The true story of the game is right in the box score.
Gasol was less than stellar on the block and lacked the aggressiveness that Jackson was seeking. He continually backed out and turned to the fade-away shot or looked to pass it back to the perimeter. One play that stood out occurred as the clock was winding down. Instead of going up for a layup or dunk following a rebound, he kicked the ball back out. Perhaps it was wise to wind clock, but a quick flush might have at least helped to curb the chatter about his Game 2 effort. Instead, he finished 2-of-10 with four free throw conversions and five rebounds (eight points).

Kobe Bryant struggled as well. He attempted only 10 shots, converting three, and finished the game with 11 points.

That’s right. Gasol and Bryant combined to shoot 25% and the Lakers still registered a nine-point victory.

Andrew Bynum played like a man, throwing his weight around in the low-post, and putting forth a big effort on both ends of the floor. He finished the game with 17 points and 11 boards.

He was complemented well by Ron Artest, who added 15 points (6-of-14) and Sixth Man of the Year, Lamar Odom, who scored 16 points and added seven rebounds. Those who were quick to dismiss Odom in this playoff run because of his reality show and his in-laws can pipe down, if only for a day.

With Bryant and Gasol struggling, the secondary options needed to step up. They delivered.

—

The series moves to New Orleans tied 1-1. Remember to wear your unitard.

Just look at the box score and note the minutes logged by the starters. Ten players labored through at least 40 minutes on Tuesday night. Channing Frye clocked in at nearly 57 minutes (56:59), producing 32 points and 14 rebounds. The Lakers played short-handed, as Andrew Bynum sat out the second game of his suspension, forcing Phil Jackson to work his veterans hard.

Kobe Bryant, playing with myriad injuries and seemingly held together by duct tape, completed 48 minutes of action. Bryant scored 42 points, including the three-point shot late in the third overtime to help seal the win. He finished one assist shy of a triple-double (42 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists).

You could feel your legs turning to molasses as you watched the overtime periods. Each jumpshot appeared more labored to the last, and every whistle was welcomed to slow the pace.

It was a fantasy owner’s dream game, as virtually every player who turned in significant minutes posted strong offensive numbers. The Lakers played nine guys, five of whom finished in double figures. The Suns had seven players finish with at least 11 points.

Lamar Odom finished with 29 points and 16 rebounds.
Pau Gasol added 24 points and 13 rebounds.
Steve Nash had 19 points, 20 assists and dead legs that led to an air-ball down the stretch.

—–
With the victory on a small slate (only three games were played), the Lakers added a half-game to their lead over Dallas for the second seed in the West (the lead stands at one). Los Angeles has three home games on the slate to end the month (the Clippers, Hornets and Mavericks). Four of the Lakers’ final eight games will be played against Western Conference playoff-bound teams in April.

The Dodgers and Angels have yet to inspire much buzz this spring. Manny-wood is no more. Joe Torre is in the offices of Major League Baseball, and the ownership mess has fans turned off.

As a result, every Lakers jersey ever purchased has emerged from closets in Los Angeles. Hell, I saw two guys wearing autographed, Upper Deck Authenticated Magic Johnson jerseys the other day. I’ll admit to being confused, but hey, show your colors.

Don’t worry if your bracket got busted this past weekend. The NBA Playoffs are just around the corner.

Bynum obviously didn’t get dealt during that period, and we’re finally seeing him play to expectations. He’s logged a double-digit rebound total in nine of his past 11 games (six double-doubles). Bynum snatched 15 or more rebounds in five of his past six games.

Skeptics wonder if he’ll be able to bang and bruise his way through the playoffs without sustaining another injury. Fantasy owners and Lakers fans will celebrate his dominance at a scarce position while they can.