Setback Leaves Kobe Sore

So went the momentum the Lakers had toiled for, the grind they fed for almost a month.

So went their wish to take hold of their season now, right now, a season with two months misspent on the injured list, at each other’s throats and pondering ridiculous losses.

Near the end of their most decent month of basketball, the Lakers lost when they fully expected to win, to the Golden State Warriors, 114-110, Wednesday night at Staples Center. Kobe Bryant’s knee is no better, he said afterward, so what’s ahead is potentially even more precarious.

“I’ve had this feeling before,” Bryant said of a right knee sore from tendinitis. “It comes and goes.”

He added, “I’ve had worse. It’s pretty bad. [But] it’ll go away.”

Bryant, who had five points in the second half after scoring 18 in the first, said, “That had a lot to do with it.”

The Lakers are off today and play the New Jersey Nets on Friday, when they’ll try to restart the season, to play themselves away from two losses in three games and a half-hearted defense that complicated things again. They’ll get Bryant some treatment, expect him to go against the Nets, and start pushing again for a fourth consecutive championship, distant as it seems, all over.

At the peak of their confidence, it was not the Lakers who played the best or the hardest in the middle of a week they all called important. The Warriors defeated the Lakers at Staples Center for the first time, and in Los Angeles for the first time since April 3, 1999.

Earl Boykins, 5 feet 5 in cowboy boots, scored 10 fourth-quarter points, five in the final 33.7 seconds, for the Warriors, who in the final possessions spread the floor and sent Boykins at Derek Fisher and a defense that had been slow all game.

“In this league I am confident I can beat anybody one on one, so I just went at him,” Boykins said.

So now, if the Lakers (19-22) are going to reach their goal of a .500 record by the All-Star break, they’ll need to win five of the next six games. Robert Horry’s guarantee of .500 by the end of January requires three consecutive victories against three good teams, two of them on the road.

Apparently, it struck an odd chord in Laker Coach Phil Jackson, who considered the loss and what it had done to their immediate plans, and barely held back a grin.

“I don’t know, I’m going to cry in a second,” he said. “It’s just bothering me terribly. It’s just, I’m sad. Real sad. But, you know, we’ll go on. We’ll have to play the one on Friday, I guess. They won’t cancel that one and let us be sad for a while. So, we’ll just go ahead and keep playing them until we get better at it.

“We really want to be .500 by All-Star break. We’ve got our hands really [full]. So, we’re tying ourselves up right now. Friday’s game is going to be a tough one.”

Wednesday’s was, uh, weird.

Shaquille O’Neal had 28 points and nine rebounds. He fouled out with 3:58 remaining and then declined an invitation to address the media.

O’Neal wasn’t on the floor when the Warriors won it. He had been called for three offensive fouls, the last when his left elbow struck Troy Murphy in the chin. The Lakers scored 12 points after he left (Fisher had a season-high 24 points), but did not defend the Warriors.

Boykins spun Fisher and scored on a nine-foot jumper to give the Warriors a 109-105 lead with less then 34 seconds left, and on the next possession, scored on a five-foot runner for a 111-107 lead, was fouled by Fisher, and made the free throw.

“We needed more guys to make plays,” said Fisher, who missed two free throws with 1:10 to play. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t continue the job down the stretch.”

The Warriors arrived having won eight of 13 games, standing two games behind the Lakers in the Pacific Division -- not that that’s a resume-builder about now -- and playing hard under first-year Coach Eric Musselman.

Indeed, before the game, Jackson had said of the Warriors, “They’re really competitive. Now it’s [a matter of] learning how to win those last four or five minutes of a ballgame.”

With three minutes left, the Warriors led, 104-98. O’Neal was on the bench, Bryant was rubbing his knee, and Boykins was just warming up.