Kobe Bryant Benched: Mike Brown's Decision Not to Blame for Lakers' Latest Loss

Oh no! Mike Brown benched Kobe Bryant down the stretch during the Los Angeles Lakers' 102-96 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday night.

(Insert second guessing of Mike Brown here.)

(Insert reasons to fire Brown here.)

(Insert equal parts praise and derision for Kobe in the clutch here.)

Now, excuse me while I allow cooler heads to prevail and look ahead to the Western Conference playoffs in which the Lakers are likely to debut as the No. 3 seed in a month's time.

Benching or no, the Black Mamba still logged 38 minutes against the Grizz, during which he managed all of 18 points on 15 shoots against Tony Allen's smothering defense. He was on the floor for the first half of the fourth quarter, when LA's deficit expanded from three points to 14. With Metta World Peace on the floor, the Lakers actually shrunk their disadvantage to nine points before Bryant returned to action.

Meanwhile, the Lakers as a whole shot just 42.5 percent from the field while allowing the visitors to convert 51.2 percent of their shots. Andrew Bynum poured in 30 points but was decidedly lackadaisical on defense, pulling down a grand total of four rebounds while allowing a recovering Zach Randolph and (laddi daddi) Hamed Haddadi to bully him on the boards.

So please, save the griping about Bryant's absence and how he should've been on the court for the whole fourth quarter. The Purple and Gold's problems on the evening extended far beyond anything Kobe could've done with a few more measly minutes in the game.

If anything, it was about time Mike Brown opted to let his star player ride the pine for a few minutes. It was about time Brown decided not to burn Kobe's candle at both ends to boost his team's marginal odds of winning a meaningless regular-season game.

It was about time Kobe got a breather. Sunday saw him fail to crack the 20-point plateau for the third time in his last five games, a trend shortly preceded by a stretch during which the Mamba racked up 40 or more minutes in five of six contests.

With the playoffs just around the corner, Mike Brown can hardly afford to run Kobe into the ground as he has for most of the season.

If anything, Brown should be applauded for doing what he did—that is, making decisions based on his own inclinations rather than the whims of his most prominent player. By all accounts, Brown has Kobe's respect, and while Bryant may not like everything his coach does, he's not about to lead a mutiny in the locker room.

Not in the middle of a season and not with his career clock ticking away faster and louder than ever.

To be sure, Brown still has plenty of work to do in LA and would likely admit as much if you asked him. He's had only scant practice time since December to get to know his players, implement new offensive and defense schemes and acclimate himself to his new surroundings, all while attempting to fill the enormous shoes left behind by Phil Jackson.

In other words, the Mike Brown Regime is still a work in progress, as anyone should expect it to be. So long as Kobe's on board and Bynum and Pau Gasol are healthy come late April and early May, the Lakers will be just fine. 

And if Kobe Bryant isn't about to criticize his coach for holding him out, then maybe (just maybe) we shouldn't either, at least for now.

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