Bryant is being pushed to brink

With 4:32 left in the second quarter Tuesday, Kobe Bryant drove through three Phoenix Suns before being fouled in front of the basket.

It was the kind of tough play the Lakers had been avoiding. It was the sort of effort the Lakers had been missing.

Yet as Bryant walked to the foul line, he walked alone.

No teammate slapped his hand. No teammate patted his back. No teammate even behaved remotely like a teammate.

Not only didn't the Lakers seem to care about the Phoenix Suns, they didn't seem to care about each other.

And after their awful 126-98 loss to the Suns in Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs, falling behind two games to none with no hope in sight, you have to wonder.

With the Lakers seemingly destined to be sent home without a playoff series win for the third consecutive year since the departure of Superman, where does this leave Wonder Boy?

After three years of wondering what the Lakers are going to do with Kobe Bryant, maybe everyone has been wondering the wrong thing.

What is Kobe Bryant going to do with the Lakers?

With the window closing quickly on his chance to win a championship without Shaquille O'Neal, the prematurely aging Bryant must surely ponder jumping out before he spends the rest of his career with his nose pressed longingly to the glass.

How much longer can Bryant stand to be a Laker?

The horrific second quarter Tuesday at the US Airways Center was the perfect example of how the only thing more amazing than his ability is his patience.

How much more can Bryant take?

In the second quarter in Game 1, he was subtly poked by Coach Phil Jackson for taking eight shots and scoring 15 points and exhausting himself too soon.

"That's what we would have liked to see at the end of the game," Jackson said.

So in the second quarter Tuesday, what did Bryant do? He took one shot. He had two assists. He scored four points. And what happened?

The Lakers were outscored, 37-22, it cost them the game, and Bryant was left with 15 meaningless points, a needlessly sprained ankle and a huge scowl.

"They played harder than we did," he said, later adding, "It's not like we have the best talent in the league, so we really have to pride ourselves on playing hard all the time. All the time."