Kobe proves to be royal pain in the back

LOS ANGELES — Kobe Bryant did his job, in a way.

Good thing for him Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom did theirs.

Nobody leaped tall buildings in a single bound. Nobody lit up the night sky. It was, in fact, fairly workmanlike.

Sometimes it's not all that glamorous, but at this stage, neither the Jazz nor Lakers is asking for art.

So now that Game 5 is over, could they pleeeease get back to actual basketball?

The Jazz are one game from vacation, following a 111-104 loss to the Lakers, Wednesday night. All that buildup. All that back-talk. Sort of anti-climactic, really.

Bryant , he of the injured back, was good but not special. This was no Michael-Jordan-with-a-fever type moment. He finished with 26 points, but got off only 10 shots. Thirteen of his points were from the free-throw line.

Still, he did do one important thing: He got the Lakers going. That counts for something.

When flying with the eagles isn't possible, sometimes roosting with the pigeons is enough.

Gasol and Odom combined for 43 points, enough to make up for Bryant's shortfall.

Now the series moves back to Salt Lake, where the story hopefully will be more about basketball and less about lumbar pain.

Although there actually was a game Wednesday, in some ways it took a distant second to the injury story, i.e. Bryant's overtaxed, under-rested, overexposed back. After twisting it on Sunday, the injury became the focus of the series.

Whether he would play wasn't the issue. He said all along he would. Whether he would be hampered, nobody knew. Lakers coach Phil Jackson said even if Bryant was on the court as a non-scorer, that would be OK.

A Rolls still drives like a Rolls, even with a dent.

That was true on Wednesday.

Besides, playoff injury stories tend to get bigger than the games themselves.

If Bryant winces, the time stops.

That's actually understandable when you consider Kobe is Kobe, and L.A. is L.A.

Nothing beats a good battered-but-unbowed hero story.

Injury or no, the Lakers didn't waste an opportunity to turn the focus away from the game — which is an old Phil Jackson trick. Get the opponent thinking about something peripheral. Take the focus away from the Jazz winning two straight. Send the media on a goose chase. Get them agonizing over Bryant's injury, rather than the fact the Lakers' momentum had evaporated.

But Bryant's injury was actually worrisome to Jerry Sloan, perhaps as much as to Jackson. He has seen this before. In 1997, with the championship series tied 2-2, Chicago's Michael Jordan showed up with a reported 102-degree temperature. All he did was score 38 points to lead the Bulls to victory over the Jazz. Next game they wrapped up the title.