Bryant cedes the throne to James

When Lakers fans chant “M-V-P” at games, it will no longer be entirely accurate this season.

Kobe Bryant finished a distant second to Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James in the voting for the league’s most valuable player award.

James received 109 of 121 first-place votes and easily won his first MVP award with 1,172 voting points. Bryant was next with 698 points and Miami guard Dwyane Wade was third with 680.

Wade had seven first-place votes while Bryant and New Orleans guard Chris Paul each had two.

Bryant won his first MVP award last season and might have had a better chance to repeat if the Lakers had a better record, teammate Lamar Odom said. The Cavaliers finished a league-best 66-16. The Lakers were 65-17.

“Sometimes I wish that we could have won some games that we felt were winnable,” Odom said. “If we had a better record, it might have been closer.”

The award was determined by a vote of sportswriters and broadcasters.

“I certainly think LeBron deserved it this year, maybe not by the landslide that he had, but he certainly had a terrific season and so did Cleveland,” said Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, who also thought the Cavaliers benefited by having a better record than the Lakers.

“I think there’s a lot of sentiment toward that, but I felt that shift somewhere -- toward the end of March and beginning of April where they ran off, what, 12 games in a row or something like that. They had a winning streak that kind of separated us from them. Not much, but enough.”

Jackson also mentioned that the MVP award was only an individual achievement.

“The real trophy is winning the championship and that’s what this is all about,” he said.

James averaged 28.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.2 assists a game. Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.9 assists.

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Back to the bench

Andrew Bynum was back in the starting lineup, which sent Odom to a familiar place.

Odom was back to being a reserve after starting the last two games of the first-round series against Utah.

“It doesn’t matter [at] this point of the year,” Odom said. “We’re in the second round of the playoffs. Whatever [Jackson] asks me to do for us to be successful, I’ll do it. There’s a different flow in the game from starting and coming off the bench, but it doesn’t matter.”

Odom might as well have started. He entered the game less than three minutes into the first quarter when Bynum picked up his second foul.

Odom finished with nine points and five rebounds in 31 minutes. He averaged 17.8 points and 11 rebounds in the first round.

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Walton not ready

Reserve forward Luke Walton made progress the last few days but not enough to suit up Monday against Houston.

“I think he’s close, but not quite there,” Jackson said.

Walton has been sidelined since sustaining a partially torn ligament in his left foot April 25 against Utah. He averaged 4.8 points and 2.8 assists in four first-round games against the Jazz.

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com