Lakers’ Kobe Bryant to sit against Dallas Mavericks

Minnesota Timberwolves' Andrew Wiggins defends against Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Nov. 28, 2014, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Minnesota Timberwolves’ Andrew Wiggins defends against Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Nov. 28, 2014, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

DALLAS — Lakers guard Kobe Bryant will sit out in Friday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks here at American Airlines Arena, marking his third consecutive game missed in hopes to rest his fatigued and sore 36-year-old body.

Lakers coach Byron Scott considered reported that Bryant “feels pretty good” about playing on Sunday when the Lakers host the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center.

Will this trend of Bryant missing in a sprinkle of games become a theme throughout the 2014-15 season?

“It’s so hard to predict that,” Scott said. “It comes down to how his body feels and how he’s feeling at the time. We’re going to take it one day at a time and go from there.”

Bryant has traveled with the Lakers, but he did not speak to reporters on Friday in Dallas. But the Lakers’ 36-year-old star reported on Christmas Day in Chicago that he has felt increased soreness in his knees, Achilles and metatarsals as well as back stiffness. Bryant has averaged 24.6 points albeit on a career-low 37.2 percent clip this season, his shooting accuracy taking a turn for the worse when he went 8-of-30 in Sunday’s loss in Sacramento.

Scott conceded that “maybe” Bryant could have avoided fatigue had the Lakers’ coach outlined a more conservative playing time approach than playing his star player between 30 to 40 minutes per game. Bryant also exceeded Scott’s minutes threshold three times because of two overtime games and one game that featured four days before the Lakers’ next contest. Bryant also went through stretches where played entire first and third quarters.

“Obviously we’ll have to adjust that a little bit,” Scott said. “But this is something that’s new for both of us. We’re trying to learn this on the fly as much as possible. We’ll have point in times where it doesn’t work and we don’t expect it to. Then we’ll scale back some things. This is one of those times.”

Scott plans to limit Bryant’s playing time around 32-33 minutes per game going forward. But Scott has not determined if he would maintain a conservative approach if Bryant shows vast improvement in his energy and play.

“I can’t really predict that,” Scott said. “All I’m trying to do is when we sit down and talk and come up with a game plan, we’ll try to stick to that game plan to the best of my abilities. If we come up to 32 minutes, I’ll try to stick to 32 minutes. If we come up to 33 minutes, I’ll try to stick to 33 minutes.”


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Follow L.A. Daily News Lakers beat writer Mark Medina on Twitter and on Facebook. E-mail him at mark.medina@langnews.com