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| Kobe Bryant Says Dahntay Jones Sorry intentionally |
Kobe Bryant Says Dahntay Jones Sorry intentionally
INDIANAPOLIS - No Kobe? The Indiana Pacers will believe it when they don't see it Friday night.Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant is listed as "out indefinitely" with a severely sprained left ankle suffered in a Wednesday night loss at Atlanta. But the Pacers are preparing as if the 15-time NBA All-Star will play.
"I knew the Lakers. I still know Kobe," said assistant coach Brian Shaw, a Lakers assistant from 2004-11. "I've seen him come back from some injuries that you would never think he would be able to come back from the next game. If anybody can bounce back from something like that, he can."
The Lakers play Friday in Indiana, and it'll be a challenge for Bryant to knock out the swelling in his ankle in time. He's trying, though.
Bryant posted to his Twitter account how many movies he was watching to stay awake late Wednesday night to maximize his ankle treatment: "Compression. Ice. Django. Zero Dark Thirty. This is Forty and 1 hour of sleep.
"That's very disheartening and that's not the way I play the game right now," Jones said of Bryant's displeasure with the play. "Obviously, we had two incidents that happened in the Western Conference finals (in 2009), and those two were totally separate from what's happening now. We played 48 minutes of basketball (Wednesday) and we didn't have any instances there at that point in time. It's just the last shot just happened to come down with an unfortunate incident. I didn't try to do anything to hurt him. I have too much respect for him to try to hurt him."
If Bryant doesn't suit up, it's not like the Lakers have nothing else. Center Dwight Howard scored a season-high 39 points in Tuesday's road win against his former team, Orlando. Point guard Steve Nash is one of the league's best ball-handlers.
"More spread pick-and-rolls for Nash and Howard?" said Pacers coach Frank Vogel. "That's not an interesting proposition, either. That's every bit as lethal.
