A Kobe Show Stopper

Kobe Bryant had another triple-double Sunday night, one of those drag-everybody-along-for-stretches games that this time beat the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Lakers played into overtime and won, 98-95, before a sleepy crowd at Staples Center that finally fawned over Bryant, and Brian Shaw, and Devean George, and a rather game Laker team that is 2-2 without Shaquille O’Neal and Rick Fox.

By the end of overtime, between the confetti strands, the healthy Lakers half hugged each other, half held each other up, and grinned at this victory, their second in a row since being blown out in Portland four nights before.

Bryant had 33 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists, one rebound short of his numbers Friday night against the Clippers. He played 50 minutes, the last 10 or so in relentless pursuit of Portland’s Derek Anderson, who scored 24 points, four in the fourth quarter and eight in the five-minute overtime period.

Shaw, who played 21 minutes off the bench, scored 11 points after halftime, including a three-pointer that gave the Lakers a 92-85 lead in overtime. George scored a career-high 25 points on a career-high 18 shots. He made two free throws with 16.7 seconds left in overtime, forcing the Trail Blazers to attempt a three, which Scottie Pippen missed.

Afterward, Derek Fisher grabbed Bryant and said, “Man, don’t Oscar Robertson them like that two nights in a row! Don’t Big O ‘em!”

Fisher shook his head and laughed. “He’s making it look so easy.”

George played 47 minutes, as did Robert Horry. Fisher played 44. So, Phil Jackson had found something critical about an early-November game, and afterward the Lakers, who leave today for a three-game East Coast trip, spoke with a certain heavy-lidded satisfaction.

“Like I said from the beginning of the season, my whole focus is to make my teammates better,” Bryant said. “You know, offense is going to come whether I score 30 points or 14. It really doesn’t matter. It’s really about getting my teammates involved, making them better players all season.”

He found satisfaction, then, in the game played by George, who missed shots early but made them late, as the Lakers worked back from a seven-point deficit with 3:20 left in regulation. And in Shaw, who has not played big minutes while Jackson experiments with new guards such as Kareem Rush, Jannero Pargo and Tracy Murray, but made the jump shot that tied the score, 81-81.

Bryant scored 15 points in the fourth quarter, two from the free-throw line with 4.5 seconds left that gave the Lakers an 85-83 lead.

“Very impressive,” Shaw said.

Then Anderson made a 22-foot jumper at the regulation buzzer, forging the 85-85 tie, and gleefully picked at his black-and-red jersey. But, then it was gone, when the Lakers scored the first seven points in overtime.

“They were a little more hungry for it, I think,” Pippen said.

By the end of regulation, Bryant had his triple-double -- 31 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, his second in two games, in three nights. It had been more than 11 years since a Laker followed a triple-double with another, since Magic Johnson in late March 1991, against Sacramento and Portland.

“Phew,” Bryant said. “That’s great company to be mentioned with the Magic man. I don’t even know what to say to that.”

It was a tremendous effort, of course, with O’Neal at the end of the bench and the edge of the huddle and the Trail Blazers cheating away from everyone but Bryant.

By the end, Laker possessions often came down to Bryant versus Ruben Patterson -- self-proclaimed “Kobe stopper” -- at the top, Bryant scanning for cutters, then clearing Patterson’s fingertips by inches with a jumper, or a pass. Then, they’d talk.

“I was just telling him, ‘You’re making incredible shots on me,’ ” Patterson said. “Because I played great defense and, I mean, he’s really improved on his jump shot.... I give him credit.”

Playing for the fourth time since Wednesday, the Trail Blazers had won one of their first three, that one a blowout of the Lakers. Since then, they’d lost by 28 points to the Sacramento Kings and by 17 to the, uh, Denver Nuggets. They’d also lost Arvydas Sabonis to a hamstring injury, so this was not a team gaining on its underachieving recent history.

“That’s sad, to say that we split them,” Pippen said. “They were Shaq-less and Fox-less but ... we have to learn to play better.”