A Break for Bryant Could Benefit Lakers

In case there was any doubt, it’s now officially, unquestionably the Kobe Bryant Season.

Somehow, some way (or as Phil Jackson would say, in some form or fashion) Bryant will always be the top story. Only Bryant could shift the focus from the Lakers’ biggest game so far to an index finger.

Bryant’s right index finger was sliced open at home Thursday night, a gash wide enough to need 10 stitches to close, deep enough to send him to the injured list. The team said he injured it when his hand went through a glass window when he was moving boxes in his garage.

When all is right in Lakerland, the sound you hear is the refrigerator door closing, not the garage window breaking. That isn’t the case this jinxed season.

Bad news doesn’t even bother General Manager Mitch Kupchak anymore, not after the steady dose he has received this season. He took the call Friday morning, didn’t even notice a change in his blood pressure and started to look for a replacement. The Lakers will bring in Maurice Carter on a 10-day contract.

You’re probably thinking the same thing one Laker said when he saw Carter’s name taped to an empty locker: “Who is that?”

We know this much: he ain’t Kobe Bryant.

There are two times when Bryant steps to the forefront: in the fourth quarter and on the road. And here were the Lakers, locked in a tight game with the Minnesota Timberwolves before they venture on a seven-game trip.

The earliest Bryant could return from his five-game stay on the injured list is Feb. 8, at Orlando.

That might be the best thing for him anyway, because he clearly had not recovered from the problem that resulted in his previous trip to the injured list, a sprained right shoulder. It bothered him after his first game back last Saturday in Utah and prevented him from practicing at full-speed this week.

“I was fighting through the pain to help us get back on track a little bit,” Bryant said before the game. “We won these last two games. We seem to be getting back on track. Big Fella’s back. Let’s see if we can’t keep this momentum going.”

Shaquille O’Neal, the “Big Fella,” looked more like his old self in his second game back after missing 12 because of a strained right calf. But Gary Payton mixed with two-thirds of Shaq, no Bryant and no Karl Malone wasn’t enough to offset Minnesota’s dynamic trio of Kevin Garnett, Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell. They combined for 83 points as Minnesota pulled away for a 97-84 victory.

This is one of those long-lasting defeats.

It dropped the Lakers three games behind Minnesota in the loss column and down 0-2 in the head-to-head series.

Let’s say the Sacramento Kings win the Pacific Division and the Timberwolves win the Midwest Division. The division winners automatically receive the top two seedings in the playoffs, but if the Lakers finish with a better record than Minnesota (or tied with a better head-to-head record) they would have home-court advantage should the two meet in the playoffs.

Home court counts more than the seedings, because there’s no avoiding the tough teams no matter what the starting position. Any Laker path to the NBA Finals will probably involve trips to two of these four cities: Sacramento, Minnesota, San Antonio and Dallas. The best they can do is to minimize the number of road games.

I’m not so sure the Lakers -- or anyone else -- wants Minnesota. Sure, the franchise hasn’t been past the first round of the playoffs. They also never had Cassell and Sprewell.

Remember that come May.

The other lesson of the week is mess with Bryant at your own risk. The Utah Jazz was fined $15,000 by the NBA for a skit in last Saturday’s game involving a “phone call” from a Karl Malone impersonator who complained about his life in L.A. and concluded “It could be worse ... I could be Ko-” before the call clicked off.

The league billed the Jazz for “ridiculing an opposing player,” but clearly the main offense was making light of Bryant’s legal situation rather than hurting Malone’s feelings. After all, the Dallas Mavericks weren’t fined for a cartoon in which they mocked the weight of “Shaq Albert.” That means the Jazz was hit for 15 large ones for one syllable. Ouch.

On Friday, a fan seated about 10 rows behind the Laker bench shouted derogatory comments at Bryant during quiet moments in the third quarter. Bryant turned around, other fans pointed out the offender and Bryant and Malone went to security and had the fan escorted out of the building.

Oh, and don’t think Bryant isn’t dangerous on the court even with one hand and arm out of service.

About two hours before tipoff, Bryant stood at half court, launching left-handed shots. He took $40 from Laker radio broadcaster Mychal Thompson in Utah with a lefty jump shot, and he pocketed another 40 from Thompson Friday then forced another reporter to do 200 push-ups after he made two more.

As Bryant went from the court to the locker room, a kid in the stands held up a jersey and asked Bryant for an autograph. Bryant held up his bandaged finger and said he couldn’t. So the kid asked him why he was cleaning out the garage.

“It was messy,” Bryant responded.

Hope the garage at the Bryant household is cleaner now, because the Laker season -- this Kobe season -- became even more mixed up.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected]. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adande.