As long as Kobe Bryant scores 61 points every night, the Lakers should be just fine.

But there's that little issue of fatigue over the course of the season, not to mention the difficulty of actually accomplishing it consistently, and, of course, the fact that his coach doesn't want him expending that effort every night at the risk of shutting out other teammates, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bryant's outburst Monday against the New York Knicks was something to behold — 19 for 31 shooting, 20 for 20 from the free-throw line and two Madison Square Garden records — though Lakers Coach Phil Jackson assumed his customary share-the-ball mind-set a day later, lest the triangle offense become a little too one-sided.

Jackson exhibited a serious stance when asked if Bryant could sustain that type of blistering pace, perhaps even tonight against the Toronto Raptors, the same franchise he burned for 81 points a little more than three years ago.

"We don't want him to because we have so many other players that can contribute," Jackson said. "Obviously with Andrew [Bynum] out, we're missing a piece of scoring there that's been effective for us. At the end of the game [against New York], Pau [Gasol] was feeding Kobe and finding him in certain situations where he probably could have persisted in the post himself.

"I talked to [Bryant] after the game and said, 'Why don't you let me know when you're going to go off like that before a ballgame so we can measure it out accordingly?' But when he started out that hot, everybody fed into it and it just kept accumulating."

It's not the first time Jackson has advocated a return to normalcy after a Bryant scoring spree. It's ingrained in Jackson's basketball mind that one player simply can't win games over and over again.

Source: Los Angeles Times