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Phil Jackson never got terribly comfortable while becoming the winningest coach in Los Angeles Lakers history, even with his superstar hobbling and the Charlotte Bobcats refusing to go away Wednesday night.  Lamar Odom scored 19 points and Andrew Bynum had 17 points and 14 rebounds, while making several big plays down the stretch, making sure Jackson added another superlative to his matchless coaching career in Los Angeles’ 99-97 victory over the Bobcats.

Phil Jackson, also the winningest coach in Chicago Bulls history, passed Pat Riley with his 534th win with the Lakers. Jackson, the Hall of Famer won 545 games and six titles in nine seasons with Michael Jordan and Co. This was before winning four more rings in his first nine seasons with the Lakers, rising to fifth on the NBA’s career coaching victories list when he passed Charlotte’s Larry Brown earlier this season.

“It’s been a really good run,” Jackson said. “Having this opportunity to coach this team is always special. The fact that we’ve had some great teams, great players, is always a credit to them. It’s not really an individual record in my mind.”

The winningest playoff coach in NBA history belongs to Jackson. He is the only coach to win more than 70 percent of his regular-season games. Jackson managed to coax a late-game win out of his Lakers even with just a season-low five points from Kobe Bryant, against the pesky Bobcats.

With Bryant’s already-sore left foot when Odom stepped on it late in the first half, his jumping and speed was obviously compromised. On top of that, Bryant then failed to score in the fourth quarter of his first single-digit scoring game of the season.

“It was just stiff—stiff and tight,” said Bryant, who’s already playing with a broken finger on his shooting hand. “Lamar stepped on my foot as I was changing directions, so … it just made it worse. It just set it back to Square One.”

Returning from an eight-game trip, Ron Artest and Pau Gasol scored 14 points apiece for the Lakers, to improve the NBA’s best home record to 24-3 with their eighth consecutive victory at Staples Center.

“We struggled against them for a while, and we were able to play pretty well even though it wasn’t our best game,” Gasol said.
Since beating Orlando on January 18th, the Lakers haven’t been home. The defending champions went just 5-3 on their East Coast trip, staying atop the Western Conference but struggling against the demands of a schedule that includes four more games in the next seven days.   Stephen Jackson scored 30 points and played without injured All-Star Gerald Wallace in the finale of a six-game trip. Even with Byrant’s woes, Nazr Mohammed added 23 points and 17 rebounds, but they couldn’t quite pull ahead to beat the Lakers for the fourth straight time.

“Everybody played good, (but) they’ve got such length and depth and size,” Brown said. “We weren’t exactly perfect, but we were pretty darn good. … We’re getting better. We compete every night.”

In the first three quarters, neither teams took a lead larger than seven points and Charlotte quickly erased an eight-point Lakers lead in the fourth. Mohammed’s fall away jumper with 1:38 to play trimmed Los Angeles’ lead to 93-92, but Gasol responded with a quick hook shot before blocking Jackson’s driving layup.
The Bobcats had a final chance to tie, after Odom tipped home Artest’s layup, Bryant missed a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left.  But Jordan Farmar forced a turnover on Jackson’s pass on a muddled inbounds play, and made a fast-break dunk on a pass from Gasol with 4.5 seconds left.

“I had everybody confused,” Brown said. “That was my fault. We had another timeout where I don’t think anybody really understood what we were trying to do, so that was on me. I told them all afterwards that that was just an old coach doing a stupid thing.”

With 1.2 seconds left, Flip Murray made a 3-pointer to trim the final margin.

“(A win) would have made a good road trip a great road trip, but they did what they had to do down the stretch, and that’s what good teams do,” Mohammed said. “We’re still growing, and that is where we’re going to be.”

On Monday night, the first All-Star, Murry, in Bobcats history, strained his left hamstring late in their loss at Portland. Murry skipped Wednesday’s shoot around, but wasn’t ruled out until game time, with Stephen Graham starting in his place.

Bryant’s night began by receiving a standing ovation from a pregame ceremony in which Lakers great Jerry West presented him with a game ball in recognition of Bryant’s ascension to the top of the Lakers’ career scoring list. Bryant passed West on Monday night during the Lakers’ loss at Memphis.