Kobe Bryant optimistic in final stretch

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Kobe Bryant isn’t used to scoreboard watching this time of year. He isn’t used to having his playoff destiny rest in the hands of another team. But with five games left in the regular season for the Los Angeles Lakers that’s the exact position he’s in.

The Utah Jazz are half a game up on the Lakers and hold the tiebreaker with four games left in their season so if the Jazz go 3-1 during that stretch, the Lakers would need to win their last five games to make the playoffs.

“Unless Utah goes belly up, too,” Bryant said. “You don’t know what the hell is going to happen.”

Bryant smiled when he was told the Lakers have yet to put five good games together all year.

“We’ve put four (together),” Bryant said. “We’ve put four. The way I figure, you put four together, and there’s no (expletive) way we’re losing the last game. There’s just no way. So we’ll put four together, and deal with the last one when we get there.”

The Lakers will play their final back-to-back of the season on Tuesday and Wednesday when they play the New Orleans Hornets at Staples Center and then travel to play the Portland Trail Blazers. The Lakers haven’t swept a back-to-back this season and have made a habit of losing Portland for years. Both will have to change if the Lakers are going to make the playoffs.

“We have to get it cracking a little bit,” Bryant said. “It’s a good time to start. We’ll just think about tomorrow and think about Portland when we get there. We just have play better but we’ve been playing pretty well.”

ESPN