Winter Not Cold to Kobe’s Shot Selection

The Lakers did not practice Saturday and had no plans to today, and while a few of their hearty might have showed up at the El Segundo facility over the weekend, Kobe Bryant almost certainly was not going to be one of them.

By Friday night, on his way out of Seattle, Bryant did not bother to hold his sculpted shoulders back, and heavy eyelids partially hid reddened eyes.

The fatigue was going around, of course, the Lakers having pushed through a rigorous stretch of 11 games in 18 days. They won all but two of them, part of a longer period in which they are 21-7, and once again their four-peat has legs.

Just, not today. Today it has no alarm clock, no bus, no game plan.

“I need it,” Bryant said on his way to the last charter flight for a while.

“I need it,” Rick Fox said.

Bryant averaged 43.8 minutes over nine games from Feb. 14 to Feb. 28, strenuous even by his standards, considering his offensive and defensive responsibilities. While often defending the second-best player on the floor, Bryant for a month scored at a rate unseen in four decades, since the juiced-ball seasons of Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor.

Though Bryant took almost 30 shots a game for the month and while Shaquille O’Neal on Friday stood and demanded, for the benefit of reporters and headlines, his larger role back, even triangle purist Tex Winter has had few complaints about Bryant.

“I think he’s been terrific,” Winter said this week. “He’s hit some sensational shots. The thing that comes in, it’s one of those live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword things.”

Winter smiled. “Let’s just say he’s made some difficult shots.”

He laughed.

“The only thing I tell Kobe, I don’t think he should force shots,” he said. “He shouldn’t shoot under duress. It’s not necessary in this offense.”

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Twenty-four regular-season games remain for the Lakers, 14 of them road games. Seven of the 24 are on the business end of back-to-back games in a different city than the previous night’s game.

Their schedule is kind for one more airy week -- Indiana on Wednesday, Minnesota on Friday and Philadelphia on Sunday, all at Staples Center -- if not exactly soft.

Beginning March 11, the Lakers will play six games in six towns over 10 days with one game in Los Angeles, but not as the home team.