LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bum wrist and all, Kobe Bryant showed why he’s one of the NBA’s best closers, breaking open a tight game with 15 of the Los Angeles Lakers’ final 17 points.

Bryant finished with 48 points, tops in the league this season, in a 99-83 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night, the Lakers’ seventh straight win at home and third in a row overall.

“Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league,” Bryant said, referring to an online ranking of the NBA’s top 500 players.

The NBA’s leading scorer topped the 40-point mark for the first time this season with his fifth straight game of 25 or more. Bryant was 18 of 31 from the floor and made 12 of 13 free throws. Pau Gasol added 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“If I play bad or have one bad game like I did in Denver, everybody cries for a change or cries for the fact that I’m too old. It’s just a bad game with a bad wrist,” Bryant said, referring to his 16 points in a loss against the Nuggets on New Year’s Day. “You got to figure out a way to get it done.”

Bryant said he gets an injection before every game to cope with his ailing right wrist.

In his previous four games, Bryant had 26 points against Memphis on Sunday, 39 against Golden State, 30 at Portland and 37 against Houston.

“He’s always going to be aggressive and assertive to score, but he’s picking his spots and he’s doing it in a very efficient manner,” Derek Fisher said.

“That ranks it right up there with the best of them because it doesn’t look like he’s trying to do it. He’s just doing it within the flow of the game. That’s been very effective for him and for us.”

The victory was especially sweet for Bryant, who has never hidden his disdain for the Suns, a team right behind the Lakers in the Pacific Division.

“I don’t like them,” he said. “They used to whup us pretty good and let us know about it. I won’t forget that.”

Channing Frye scored 17 points, Marcin Gortat had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and Steve Nash added 13 points and eight assists for the Suns, who had their two-game winning streak snapped.

The Suns hung around until the game’s final 6 1/2 minutes, when they trailed by one. That’s when Bryant took over with a variety of moves, banking in a jumper, dunking on consecutive baskets, hitting a fade away and making his free throws.

“He’s the best player in the game, so you come to expect that type of performance from him, if not regularly, then throughout the season at different times,” Nash said. “He was phenomenal.”

Shannon Brown scored Phoenix’s first six points of the fourth quarter, twice drawing the Suns within one. He and Frye then hit consecutive 3-pointers that got the Suns to 83-82, but they were never able to take the lead in Brown’s first game against his former team. He finished with 11 points.

“If he don’t care about his wrist, I don’t care about his wrist,” Frye said. “Everybody makes a big deal about it, but he’s been scoring 28, 30 a game. So let’s just call it what it is. He’s a great player, he’s the best individual player in basketball, and every night he comes to work. For us, we don’t like losing to the Lakers. But they came out and played a good game, and he played an amazing game.”

Phoenix led by one in the third and tied the game twice after that before getting outscored 11-6 to end the quarter trailing 73-68.

“I thought we did a good job of defending Kobe, but the guy makes tough shots. There’s a reason he is who he is,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. “Obviously, Kobe took the game over at the end there and we just couldn’t make the shots. Part of it was their defense, and part of it was that we just didn’t make the doggone things.”

The Lakers led 46-40 at the break after allowing the Suns to erase most of their 12-point lead in the second quarter. The Suns got balanced scoring in a 15-2 run that drew them within one before Bryant and Gasol keyed a 9-2 spurt to end the first half, when Bryant scored 23.

Bryant scored 13 of the Lakers’ final 15 points to put them up 25-19 in the first quarter after they trailed by nine.

NOTES: It was Bryant’s 108th career 40-point game. He had three last season. … The Lakers had 15 turnovers after turning the ball over 27 times in a 90-82 win against Memphis two nights earlier. … The Lakers G Jason Kapono missed the game to be with his wife after she gave birth to twins and F-C Troy Murphy sat out with an upset stomach. … Brown said he had mixed emotions about facing the team he won two NBA titles with before leaving the Lakers as a free agent. Bryant scored over Brown to end the first quarter. … The game was the first of 18 back-to-back sets the Lakers will play in this lockout-shortened season. They’ll be at Utah on Wednesday night.
 

CBSSports.com wire reports
Jan. 11, 2012

LOS ANGELES — Bum wrist and all, Kobe Bryant showed why he’s one of the NBA’s best closers, breaking open a tight game with 15 of the Los Angeles Lakers’ final 17 points.

Bryant finished with 48 points, tops in the league this season, in a 99-83 victory against the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night, the Lakers’ seventh consecutive victory at home and third in a row overall.

“Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league,” Bryant said, referring to an online ranking of the NBA’s top 500 players.

The NBA’s leading scorer topped the 40-point mark for the first time this season with his fifth consecutive game of 25 or more. Bryant was 18 of 31 from the floor and made 12 of 13 free throws. Pau Gasol added 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“If I play bad or have one bad game like I did in Denver, everybody cries for a change or cries for the fact that I’m too old. It’s just a bad game with a bad wrist,” Bryant said, referring to his 16 points in a loss against the Nuggets on New Year’s Day. “You got to figure out a way to get it done.”

Bryant said he gets an injection before every game to cope with his ailing right wrist.

In his previous four games, Bryant had 26 points against Memphis on Sunday, 39 against Golden State, 30 at Portland and 37 against Houston.

“He’s always going to be aggressive and assertive to score, but he’s picking his spots and he’s doing it in a very efficient manner,” Derek Fisher said.

“That ranks it right up there with the best of them because it doesn’t look like he’s trying to do it. He’s just doing it within the flow of the game. That’s been very effective for him and for us.”

The victory was especially sweet for Bryant, who has never hidden his disdain for the Suns, a team right behind the Lakers in the Pacific Division.

“I don’t like them,” he said. “They used to whup us pretty good and let us know about it. I won’t forget that.”

Channing Frye scored 17 points, Marcin Gortat had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and Steve Nash added 13 points and eight assists for the Suns, who had their two-game winning streak snapped.

The Suns hung around until the game’s final 6½ minutes, when they trailed by one. That’s when Bryant took over with a variety of moves, banking in a jumper, dunking on consecutive baskets, hitting a fade away and making his free throws.

“He’s the best player in the game, so you come to expect that type of performance from him, if not regularly, then throughout the season at different times,” Nash said. “He was phenomenal.”

Shannon Brown scored Phoenix’s first six points of the fourth quarter, twice drawing the Suns within one. He and Frye then hit consecutive 3-pointers that got the Suns to 83-82, but they were never able to take the lead in Brown’s first game against his former team. He finished with 11 points.

“If he don’t care about his wrist, I don’t care about his wrist,” Frye said. “Everybody makes a big deal about it, but he’s been scoring 28, 30 a game. So let’s just call it what it is. He’s a great player, he’s the best individual player in basketball, and every night he comes to work. For us, we don’t like losing to the Lakers. But they came out and played a good game, and he played an amazing game.”

Phoenix led by one in the third and tied the game twice after that before getting outscored 11-6 to end the quarter trailing 73-68.

“I thought we did a good job of defending Kobe, but the guy makes tough shots. There’s a reason he is who he is,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. “Obviously, Kobe took the game over at the end there and we just couldn’t make the shots. Part of it was their defense, and part of it was that we just didn’t make the doggone things.”

The Lakers led 46-40 at the break after allowing the Suns to erase most of their 12-point lead in the second quarter. The Suns got balanced scoring in a 15-2 run that drew them within one before Bryant and Gasol keyed a 9-2 spurt to end the first half, when Bryant scored 23.

Bryant scored 13 of the Lakers’ final 15 points to put them up 25-19 in the first quarter after they trailed by nine.

Notes

• It was Bryant’s 108th career 40-point game. He had three last season.
• The Lakers had 15 turnovers after turning the ball over 27 times in a 90-82 victory against Memphis two nights earlier.
• Lakers G Jason Kapono missed the game to be with his wife after she gave birth to twins and F-C Troy Murphy sat out with an upset stomach.
• Brown said he had mixed emotions about facing the team he won two NBA titles with before leaving the Lakers as a free agent. Bryant scored over Brown to end the first quarter.
• The game was the first of 18 back-to-back sets the Lakers will play in this lockout-shortened season. They’ll be at Utah on Wednesday night.

LOS ANGELES — The Suns had survived Kobe Bryant’s deluge of scoring and their starting wings’ inability to score.

---

Photos from the game | Box score

---

A Channing Frye 3-pointer had the Suns within one point of the Los Angeles Lakers with 6:14 to go in the game Tuesday night at Staples Center. It was closing time and Bryant shut it down, scoring eight points on a 10-0 Lakers run that sent Los Angeles to a 99-83 victory at Staples Center.

Bryant, playing with a torn right wrist ligament, scored 48 points on 18-of-31 shooting for his eighth career 40-point game against the Suns. Suns small forward Grant Hill had been on a six-game run of stopping opponents’ top scorers but Bryant got hot against Suns teammates and never cooled after the return of Hill, who dragged at the other end for 1-for-12 shooting.

The Suns (4-5) did not make a field goal in the game’s final six minutes, relying almost exclusively on perimeter shots to try to keep up with Bryant. Meanwhile, Bryant scored the easy way with two free throws, an inside basket and two slams during the decisive 10-0 Lakers run that put Los Angeles (7-4) ahead 93-82 with three minutes to go.

“Not bad for an old fellow,” Bryant said on the in-arena, walk-off interview.

It was a lot to ask of an old fellow, 39-year-old Hill, to handle 33 minutes of duty on Bryant four weeks after resuming basketball following rehabilitation from September knee surgery. At times, Bryant, hit tough fadeaways and stepbacks. Late in the game, Bryant beat Hill without the sort of help the Suns defense had been exhibiting.

“He was certainly aggressive and he hit some tough ones,” Hill said. “We’ll look at it and hopefully get a little better collectively.”

Bryant scored 17 points in the first quarter but only four came against Hill in the quarter’s first eight minutes. Bryant scored 13 of the Lakers’ 15-0 quarter-ending run against Jared Dudley, Steve Nash and Shannon Brown. Bryant, who purports to still hate the Suns, scored 16 points, 12 against Hill, in the game’s final eight minutes.

“He’s the best player in the world,” Suns guard Nash said. “You come to expect that type of performance from him.”

The Suns shot 42.5 percent, led by Channing Frye’s 17 points and Marcin Gortat’s 16 points and 12 rebounds. But they were shooting 47.9 percent before missing their final nine shots of the game.

“We have to find plays that work and we have to find guys who are going to make plays for us,” said Frye, who is 13 of 16 from the field in the past two games after going 13 for 48 in the first seven games. “We just didn’t make shots that we usually should make.”

The Suns got off to a hot start for the third consecutive game, taking a 19-10 lead in the first eight minutes off a string of three consecutive Frye jumpers, including two 3-pointers. After a time out, the Lakers ended the first quarter with 15 unanswered points.

Those all came on first shots but the Suns continued to have defensive rebounding issues, giving up 14 offensive rebounds. That might be understandable if it was only Lakers big men Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum but rarely used small forward Luke Walton outhustled Phoenix for five of the offensive rebounds. The Lakers scored 18 of their points on second chances.

Without Bryant, the Lakers struggled to score at times and let the Suns put on their own 11-0, reserve-fueled rally while he was out in the second quarter. Bryant accounted for half of the Lakers’ first-half points for a 46-42 lead.

The Suns briefly took the lead, 56-55, with 7:36 to go in the third quarter on a Gortat jumper off Nash’s behind-the-back pass but they would never lead again. The string of nine consecutive misses to end the game included three Hill misses and five missed 3s with Gasol switching well onto Nash to deny the Suns’ rolls off screens.

“I’m just tired a little bit out there,” Hill said. “I still have a ways to go to get my conditioning. No excuses. I got good looks. I just have to make them. I didn’t run until three days before camp so I’m still getting my legs. Obviously, it didn’t help having to chase him around but I’ve done it before and been able to be more effective on the offensive end.”

The Lakers were missing Troy Murphy (stomach pain), Jason Kapono (birth of twins) and Josh McRoberts (toe sprain) but still got good bench performances with 15 rebounds from Walton and Metta World Peace combined and eight assists by Steve Blake.

The Lakers won at home for a seventh consecutive time.

“We needed to finish up,” Gentry said. “We need to play and play well the entire 48 minutes. We fought and battled but we have to continue to work to get better. We’re still a work in progress but I thought we played hard.”

View from press row

Kobe Bryant said he was not looking forward to playing against his former backup, Shannon Brown, a “little brother” to him. Brown should have been the one dreading it. It began well with a Staples Center video board thank you to Brown, but he missed his first four shots, including three during a 15-0 Lakers run. Brown came back strong in the fourth quarter, carrying the offense while Steve Nash was out.

Report

Key player

Kobe Bryant carried the Lakers’ offense, scoring 23 first-half points.

Key moment

After the Suns stormed to a 19-10 lead, they ended the first quarter by surrendering 15 consecutive points.

Key number

8 Consecutive shots Grant Hill missed before a late third-quarter fast-break layup.

LOS ANGELES (AP)

Bum wrist and all, Kobe Bryant showed why he’s one of the NBA’s best closers, breaking open a tight game with 15 of the Los Angeles Lakers’ final 17 points.

Bryant finished with 48 points, tops in the league this season, in a 99-83 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night, the Lakers’ seventh straight win at home and third in a row overall.

”Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league,” Bryant said, referring to an online ranking of the NBA’s top 500 players.

The NBA’s leading scorer topped the 40-point mark for the first time this season with his fifth straight game of 25 or more. Bryant was 18 of 31 from the floor and made 12 of 13 free throws. Pau Gasol added 16 points and 12 rebounds.

”If I play bad or have one bad game like I did in Denver, everybody cries for a change or cries for the fact that I’m too old. It’s just a bad game with a bad wrist,” Bryant said, referring to his 16 points in a loss against the Nuggets on New Year’s Day. ”You got to figure out a way to get it done.”

Bryant said he gets an injection before every game to cope with his ailing right wrist.

In his previous four games, Bryant had 26 points against Memphis on Sunday, 39 against Golden State, 30 at Portland and 37 against Houston.

”He’s always going to be aggressive and assertive to score, but he’s picking his spots and he’s doing it in a very efficient manner,” Derek Fisher said.

”That ranks it right up there with the best of them because it doesn’t look like he’s trying to do it. He’s just doing it within the flow of the game. That’s been very effective for him and for us.”

The victory was especially sweet for Bryant, who has never hidden his disdain for the Suns, a team right behind the Lakers in the Pacific Division.

”I don’t like them,” he said. ”They used to whup us pretty good and let us know about it. I won’t forget that.”

Channing Frye scored 17 points, Marcin Gortat had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and Steve Nash added 13 points and eight assists for the Suns, who had their two-game winning streak snapped.

The Suns hung around until the game’s final 6 1/2 minutes, when they trailed by one. That’s when Bryant took over with a variety of moves, banking in a jumper, dunking on consecutive baskets, hitting a fade away and making his free throws.

”He’s the best player in the game, so you come to expect that type of performance from him, if not regularly, then throughout the season at different times,” Nash said. ”He was phenomenal.”

Shannon Brown scored Phoenix’s first six points of the fourth quarter, twice drawing the Suns within one. He and Frye then hit consecutive 3-pointers that got the Suns to 83-82, but they were never able to take the lead in Brown’s first game against his former team. He finished with 11 points.

”If he don’t care about his wrist, I don’t care about his wrist,” Frye said. ”Everybody makes a big deal about it, but he’s been scoring 28, 30 a game. So let’s just call it what it is. He’s a great player, he’s the best individual player in basketball, and every night he comes to work. For us, we don’t like losing to the Lakers. But they came out and played a good game, and he played an amazing game.”

Phoenix led by one in the third and tied the game twice after that before getting outscored 11-6 to end the quarter trailing 73-68.

”We did a good job of defending Kobe, but the guy makes tough shots. There’s a reason he is who he is,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. ”Obviously, Kobe took the game over at the end there and we just couldn’t make the shots. Part of it was their defense, and part of it was that we just didn’t make the doggone things.”

The Lakers led 46-40 at the break after allowing the Suns to erase most of their 12-point lead in the second quarter. The Suns got balanced scoring in a 15-2 run that drew them within one before Bryant and Gasol keyed a 9-2 spurt to end the first half, when Bryant scored 23.

Bryant scored 13 of the Lakers’ final 15 points to put them up 25-19 in the first quarter after they trailed by nine.

NOTES: It was Bryant’s 108th career 40-point game. He had three last season. … The Lakers had 15 turnovers after turning the ball over 27 times in a 90-82 win against Memphis two nights earlier. … The Lakers G Jason Kapono missed the game to be with his wife after she gave birth to twins and F-C Troy Murphy sat out with an upset stomach. … Brown said he had mixed emotions about facing the team he won two NBA titles with before leaving the Lakers as a free agent. Bryant scored over Brown to end the first quarter. … The game was the first of 18 back-to-back sets the Lakers will play in this lockout-shortened season. They’ll be at Utah on Wednesday night.

By Seth Pollack

– Regional Sports Editor

Follow , and

Like SB Nation Arizona on Facebook.

Jan 10, 2012 – The Phoenix Suns (4-4) will get their first crack at the most hated team in the NBA Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers (6-4). The Lakers aren’t the same Lakers that won two NBA championships in the last three seasons. Gone is the versatile Lamar Odom who would kill the Suns off the bench. Gone is the Zen Master, Phil Jackson and his precision triangle offense.

But the Lakers are still a dangerous three-headed monster with Kobe Bryant, Pao Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Kobe is playing through a wrist injury but that hasn’t slowed him one bit. KB24 is scoring 27.6 points per game and shooting the ball a LOT (23 FGA/gm). The one thing Kobe isn’t doing well (yet) is shooting from three — he’s just 20 percent so far which is career-low which probably won’t last.

The Suns will guard Kobe with Grant Hill who is regaining his defensive form after a September knee surgery.

Kobe’s shooting aside, the Lakers are most dangerous upfront with the talent of Pau Gasol at power forward and the size and improved skill of Andrew Bynum. Bynum is averaging 15.7 rebounds per game and will out-reach and out-muscle Marcin Gortat.

The Lakers are vulnerable, however, if the Suns can keep the pace high and take advantage of the lack of depth on this version of the Purple and Gold.

Projected lineups and injury report:

TV Broadcast info:

The game tips at 8:30 p.m. Arizona time with TV at Fox Sports Arizona and radio at Arizona Sports 620. Bright Side of the Sun has the live online game thread who also has this game preview:

Phoenix Suns Vs. Los Angeles Lakers Game Preview – Bright Side Of The Sun
In addition, if you can’t get jacked up with Laker rancor, Suns pride, and L.A. celebrity animosity, then you may as well avoid this one and call your grandma or sort your socks tonight.

For the latest AZ sports, follow us on Twitter @SBNArizona and “Like” us on Facebook.

Read More: Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns at Los Angeles Lakers, Jan 10, 2012 8:30 PM MST

Follow , and

Like SB Nation Arizona on Facebook.

Do you like this story?