Bryant to sit out a game

Kobe Bryant was nowhere to be seen Thursday at the Los Angeles Lakers' training facility.

He had a medical excuse, though.

He received X-rays on a sore right wrist and went home afterward. The X-rays were negative, but he will not play tonight in the Los Angeles Lakers' exhibition finale against Sacramento in Las Vegas.

He is expected to practice Saturday.

Kobe Bryant was injured in an exhibition Tuesday when Utah center Mehmet Okur struck him, Kobe Bryant later saying that Okur was "doing that European move where you stick your leg out when you take the shot and try to draw the foul. It came down on my wrist the wrong way."

Will he play Tuesday against Houston, when the games start to count?

"Yeah, I anticipate it," Coach Phil Jackson said.

Kobe Bryant was bothered by a sore knee last week that contributed to his missing three days of practice. His wrist was sore enough to require X-rays, but Jackson didn't seem overly concerned.

"I talked to him a little bit after practice [Wednesday] and he was complaining a little bit about it, but he said he thought it was going to be OK," Jackson said. "[Thursday], it was a little bit stiff and we thought it would be a good opportunity to just let him stay at home . . . and let them play without him and see how they do."

It's never a great sign for a team to have its top two players injured when the season opener is around the corner, but there the Los Angeles Lakers were Thursday, without Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom, who will miss the first few games of the season because his left shoulder hasn't recovered from off-season surgery.

The injuries are stacking up and the Los Angeles Lakers have a schedule packed with early games against playoff teams from last season. Jackson doesn't really have any other choice but to remain calm -- at this point, anyway.

"In Lamar's case, we're being really cautious here," he said. "We're not crying the blues and we're not worried about anything."

Andrew Bynum, who turns 20 on Saturday, has almost reversed field from the beginning of training camp, when his defense looked sharp and his offense unsteady.

Now his offensive game is picking up, but his defense is dragging, specifically in help situations in which he must move over from the weak side.

"I'll point out to him that if teammates are finding you for those easy dunks underneath the basket, then you've got to help them out at the other end of the floor," Jackson said. "That's your responsibility as a center. He hasn't quite grasped how indebted he is to these other guys, from that standpoint of the team."

On the other hand, Andrew Bynum is averaging 11.8 points in the preseason, second-highest on the team, and shooting 65.9%.

"His strength has been screen-and-rolls, rolling to the basket and guys finding him," Jackson said.

Jackson briefly interrupted Thursday's session with the media to yell out to center Kwame Brown to start stretching.

"You just have to be a teacher and keep the bad boys that are in the back of the class working all the time or else they don't get anything accomplished," Jackson said after reprimanding Kwame Brown, almost amused. "It's just unbelievable, this business."

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