Kobe Bryant’s benching sparks reactions (Web links)

Game stories

— The Times’ Mike Bresnahan explains why Lakers Coach Mike Brown benched Kobe Bryant late in the fourth quarter of the team’s 102-96 loss Sunday to the Memphis Grizzlies.

— The Orange County Register’s Janis Carr highlights the Lakers’ poor effort against Memphis.

— The Daily News’ Elliott Teaford notes that Brown hoped to find some minutes for Bryant to rest in the fourth quarter.

Notebooks

— The Times’ Bresnahan and I highlight Jeanie Buss’ uncertainty on whether Phil Jackson would ever coach again.

— The Daily News’ Teaford writes about Brown’s admission that he holds no bragging lights in his household since he doesn’t have a championship ring. Meanwhile, his son Elijah helped Santa Ana Mater Dei win a boys state title Saturday. Brown and his wife also have legal guardianship of Nirra Fields, who helped the Monarchs’ girls team win. And Brown’s son Cameron won a state championship on his freshman football team.

Sidebars

— ESPN Los Angeles’ Dave McMenamin reveals Bryant’s frustration over being benched.

Blogs

— ESPN Los Angeles’ Andy Kamenetzky breaks down the Lakers’ loss to Memphis.

— Lakers.com’s Mike Trudell provides a running diary of the Lakers-Grizzlies game.

— Silver Screen and Roll’s C.A. Clark argues that Bryant deserved to get benched.

— Forum Blue and Gold’s Darius Soriano says everyone was left frustrated by the Lakers’ play against Memphis.

Tweet of the Day: “We played soft & w/ no heart. No excuse for (expletive) like that.�� --Matt_Barnes 22 (Lakers forward Matt Barnes) The tweet has since been deleted.

Rick Friedman Reader Comment of the Day: “You guys are still surprised with Mike Browns substitute patterns? I mean look at what we’ve seen from him this season. We’ve seen Mcroberts go from starter to DNP to 2 minutes in crunch time against a contender. We’ve seen Kapono not get playing time for the first half of the season to playing with our entire bench for quarters at a time. We’ve seen our 3 best horses play entire 4th quarters with big leads wins or losses and on second games of a back to backs.�

“We’ve seen players go to the scorers table just to walk back to the bench even though there’s no TV timeout coming up. We’ve seen Mcroberts go in for Bynum, just to see Bynum return to the game a minute later. We’ve seen Brown flip out twice this season and we’ve seen him wear about 20 different pair of seeing glasses this season. The list goes on and on, so no, I’m not surprised at all that he took Kobe out of the game late last night.� — Magia32