Lakers tough — even without Kobe

On Sunday night in Los Angeles, the Jazz seemed to sense from the start that beating the Lakers even without All-Star Kobe Bryant would be no small task.

They were right, going to the wire before emerging with a 98-94 win.

"When (Bryant) is on the floor," said Jazz starting small forward Andrei Kirilenko, whose 23 points Sunday were a game-high, "all of the attention is on Kobe. People double- and triple-team him. Without him, sometimes it's harder — because everybody could score."

Tonight, when the same two teams meet at the Delta Center and Bryant sits out again, the Jazz expect their work to be no easier than it was at the Staples Center.

"Definitely Kobe is a big part of their game, and without him they will have a hard time to win games," said Gordan Giricek, Utah's starting shooting guard. "But, still, they're a dangerous team — and you have to be careful."

"They're an excellent ball club," starting center Jarron Collins added, "and those guys want to prove they can win without their superstar."

It's true.

"Whenever your best player is out you still want to play your best basketball," Lakers forward Lamar Odom said. "Any sport, any team, when their best player goes down you have to step up and do things the right way."

"We love Kobe when he is out there, but we can all play," teammate Brian Cook added. "We don't buy into the whole 'we don't help Kobe,' and stuff like that. We just want to play."

Bryant, however, cannot tonight. He is serving a two-game suspension for clocking Memphis' Mike Miller in the throat with an elbow during a game last week.

With him and his 32.7 points per game absent Sunday, both Cook and Odom stepped up for the 15-15 Lakers. Cook scored a team-high 19 points, and Odom posted an 18-point, 12-rebound double-double.

"We knew they were going to run more plays for Lamar (Odom), and try to get other guys involved in their offense," Collins said. "I think we adjusted well to it."

Lakers coach Phil Jackson's assessment of L.A.'s play without Bryant on Sunday sounded like a mixed bag.

"I felt like some guys tried to do more than they were capable of doing but not much," Jackson said. "They pretty much stayed within the format of the game."

HARPRING BACK: Jazz forward Carlos Boozer (strained hamstring) again will not play tonight — he has not all season — but Matt Harpring is expected back in Utah's lineup tonight.

Harpring did not play Sunday in Los Angeles because it was the second night of a back-to-back set, and he rests his surgically repaired right knee on such occasions.

He has missed six of 31 games this season, all because of the knee.

BY THE NUMBERS: Jazz coach Jerry Sloan is 39-39 all-time vs. the Lakers. After Sunday's win, Sloan has a sub-.500 regular-season record against only three teams during his 18 seasons with the Jazz and three as head coach of the Chicago Bulls: Phoenix (38-41), San Antonio (34-44) and Indiana (21-23) . . . Utah is 5-1 in road games decided by six or fewer points this season . . . The Jazz also are 7-1 when leading at the half on the road.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com