The searing pain in Kobe Bryant’s back left him struggling to walk.
He sat in a cold tub nearly all night, but his back still felt tight. He rested hours leading into tipoff, but he still felt stiff.
So in a season in which he hoped he could log all 82 games, Bryant did the unthinkable. He sat on the bench when the Lakers visited Miami in late November. The same thing happened the next day in Orlando.
That prompted one of Bryant’s therapists, Michael Oviedo, to increase his Fusionetics treatment the Lakers’ 37-year-old star increasingly has received this season.