BRYANT TORCHES CLIPPERS LAKERS STAR SCORES 50 IN TEAM'S VICTORY LAKERS 112, CLIPPERS 109.

Byline: Joe Stevens Staff Writer

If the Lakers and Clippers are connected this season as borderline playoff teams without serious chances of winning a championship, the Lakers at least have one thing the Clippers don't:

A show-stopping, logic-defying superstar with the ability to take over basketball games and do things that often border on impossible named Kobe Bryant.

In his second game back from a two-game suspension for a flagrant foul, Bryant hit a winning 6-foot jump shot with 11.4 seconds left and exploded for 50 points, eight rebounds and eight assists to give the Lakers a 112-109 victory in front of 20,154 Saturday night at Staples Center.

Bryant bombarded the Clippers with 40 points in the second half - the second highest point total in a half in Lakers history. He once scored 42 in a half in March 2003.

His biggest shot came with 11.4 seconds left, a running jump shot that snapped a 12-1 Clippers run. The Clippers were briefly up 109-108 with 25.0 seconds left when Elton Brand scored over the Lakers' Kwame Brown.

The Clippers had a possession down 110-109 with 11.4 seconds, but a turnover from Shaun Livingston gave the Lakers' Smush Parker an uncontested fast-break layup to put the Lakers up by three.

On the Clippers' next possession, Cuttino Mobley made a 3-point shot that came after the final buzzer. Mobley finished with a season-high 36 points, and Brand had 28 points and 10 rebounds.

Bryant scored 11 consecutive points with three 3-pointers in a 2 minute, 1 second span to start the fourth quarter and give the Lakers an 89-82 lead. But after that, the scrappy Clippers hung around and engineered a 10-1 run to pull to 108-107 with 48.6 left.

Midway through the third quarter, it hardly looked as if Bryant and the Lakers could pounce on the Clippers the way they did. The Clippers led by 13 midway through the third quarter and were up 82-78 heading into Bryant's quarter, the fourth quarter.

The Clippers had never beaten the Lakers three in a row in Clippers history until they won Nov. 18 with a 97-91 victory. Historically, the Lakers have beaten up on the Clippers more than any other team.

So compared with the body of their match-ups, the past few games have been an aberration. The Lakers held a .750 winning percentage (124-42) against the Clippers heading into Saturday's game, and the Lakers just lost two series to the Clippers in 1992-93 and 1974-75, when the franchise was the Buffalo Braves.

Hardly a day goes by in which the topic of Clippers injuries doesn't come up between Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy and reporters. That subject came up again Saturday and became apparent with the team's defense of Bryant. The Clippers started rookie Daniel Ewing on Bryant, then switched to second-year guards Livingston and Quinton Ross.

Typically, Corey Maggette defends Bryant, but he is out with a separated ligament in his left foot. He missed his 18th game this season, and Dunleavy said he isn't expected back for a month.

``He's somebody that puts a lot of pressure on Kobe to play defense - that's the biggest thing,'' Dunleavy said. ``When you run into someone on the schedule with a really good player, you want to make him expend energy on both ends of the floor. We try to attack the other team's best player and make them work.''

With the relatively inexperienced players of Ewing, Livingston and Ross on Bryant, the Lakers star still had a horrible first-half shooting, going 2 of 12 (16.7 percent) for 10 points.

But early on, it didn't look as if Bryant's poor shooting would matter. The Lakers led 29-18 after the first quarter and led by as many as 12 points in the first period, in which Bryant went 1 for 6 (16.7 percent) and his teammates shot 9 of 11 (81.8 percent).

The Lakers' shooting, though, went the opposite direction in the second quarter, when they shot 24.1 percent and the Clippers shot 66.7 percent. The Clippers led 55-50 at halftime, despite the Lakers' early 12-point lead.

Another big difference between the teams between the two contrasting quarters in the first half was bench play. A lot of the Clippers' comeback came with the second unit on the court. Erratic forward Chris Wilcox had seven points in the quarter, and Livingston had six of his seven assists in the quarter.

Joe Stevens, [phone]

joe.stevens(at)presstelegram.com

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

The Clippers' Sam Cassell, left, gets fouled by the Lakers' Smush Parker during Saturday's game.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer