watching sports: Kobe Bryant silent on eve of matchup

Kobe Bryant declined to speak to the media Tuesday as he made his way out of the arena after two fourth-quarter technical fouls earned him a trip to the showers before the end of the Los Angeles Lakers' loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.Bryant never emerged from the training room to answer questions about the impending matchup with the Miami Heat at Thursday's practice after the team had the day off Wednesday.

He again avoided the media pack Friday, offering up a brusque "Merry Christmas" as he passed by a few reporters lingering in the lobby of the team's practice facility after most of his teammates had already left.So we'll have to wait until after the game is over Saturday to hear what Bryant thinks about playing against LeBron James again.Bryant's team offered up plenty of sound bites about the Christmas game for him Friday, not because it will be against the glitzy Big Three and Miami, but because the Heat at 21-9 are simply a good team.

And the Lakers have not done too well against good teams so far this season, racking up a 2-3 record versus teams above .500 as of Dec. 24: They lost to Denver and Utah, split two games with Chicago and beat Portland.
When things were going rough in Miami and the team was barely above .500, Jackson said what everyone else around the league was thinking: Heat coach Erik Spoelstra's job could be in jeopardy of Pat Riley making the trip down from the front office to the sidelines again.What does Jackson think about Spoelstra now that the Heat has won 13 out of their past 14 games?

"I think he's going to be the Coach of the Year," Jackson said with a wry smile. "It took a real kind of 'Come to Jesus' moment, I think, for their team to kind of come to terms with who they were and 'This is who we're going to be, we're going to have to play within this framework' and they really got the spark back."Jackson also was asked if he tuned into James' free agency special on ESPN while he was at his summer home in Flathead Lake, Mont.

"I did not watch LeBron's decision and my thoughts echo that of Michael Jordan and some of the other guys who say they would never have done something like that," Jackson said. "They would have anticipated their team would have built up the talent so they could get back to the championship. I think that's kind of what everybody expected. Not too many players that have gone to the Finals like Cleveland did [in 2007] would lose a player that has been there. They would want to redeem that opportunity. But that's his choice and we'll all live with it."