Learning all Sonics can gain

LOS ANGELES — You could see the desire in Kevin Durant's eyes.

All month, the Sonics rookie has watched established NBA stars make key plays at key points in the game to help their teams defeat Seattle.

And each time Durant steals a little of their game and tries to duplicate the effort in his next outing, wanting along with teammates to get Seattle on a winning path.

But while Durant's driving layin brought the Sonics to only five points down with 8.4 seconds left against Los Angeles, only Lakers guard Kobe Bryant would shine on Tuesday night. The perennial All-Star scored six of his game-high 35 points in the final four minutes, including two free throws with 12.2 seconds left, to send the Sonics to a 106-99 defeat.

Los Angeles snapped a three-game losing streak before a sellout crowd of 18,997 at Staples Center.

Seattle was left with the league's worst record at 2-13 and continues to match the inaugural Sonics for worst start in franchise history.

The 1967-68 team was 2-14 before getting its third victory of the season.

The Sonics quickly dressed and boarded their bus, seemingly not wanting to answer the same repetitive questions of why they can't execute past the opening half.

Durant continued to keep his comments positive, but even those responses are getting shorter and shorter.

"He still has a young man's body," Lakers forward Lamar Odom said of the 19-year-old Durant. "Once he matures a little bit, he'll be tough."

Possibly as tough as Bryant, who made clutch buckets with the shot clock running down and grabbed critical rebounds.

Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo had Damien Wilkins and Jeff Green defend Bryant, but both struggled to keep up.

Still, the Sonics attempted to make a game of it in the closing minutes. A dunk by forward Chris Wilcox gave the Sonics life with a 104-99 deficit with 1:24 left. But then Wilkins' shot was blocked by former Gonzaga star Ronny Turiaf and Wilcox and Durant missed shots.

"We played perfect, we just need to battle a little bit better than we did," Carlesimo said. "I thought that our bench did a really good job, they gave us a good effort. We just didn't ... we needed to get some stops and needed to stop fouling. And I thought Kobe made a couple of big shots at the last second or two of the clock and Lamar had a very good game."

Carlesimo started Delonte West, stating it was his intention to open the season giving Luke Ridnour, Earl Watson, and West a stint at the starting point-guard position. West had no assists and one technical through three quarters, getting benched for Watson in the fourth. Watson, meanwhile, was a spark, scoring seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and adding six assists and six rebounds to his total.

But no matter how close the Sonics pulled, silly errors in the third quarter hurt the team. With West at the helm, the Sonics were outscored 11-4 to fall behind 79-68.

"Again, third quarter, we've been struggling coming out," Sonics center Kurt Thomas said. "We have to adjust. I mean, we're right there, tied game at halftime. We've just got to come out and execute better. You've got to give Kobe credit, every time we tried to make a run, Kobe seemed to come back and hit a big shot for them."

Sonics forward Nick Collison left the game with a possible broken nose after being fouled by Bryant with 2:31 left in the third quarter. He was examined by a Lakers doctor and will be re-examined in Seattle.

Collison was replaced by Mouhamed Sene, a selection made by Lakers coach Phil Jackson who wanted the second-year center to shoot the free throws because Collison was unable to do so. Sene made one of the two free throws.

"We know we haven't won as much as we want to," said Durant, who finished with a team-high 25 points. "But we've got to keep getting better."

The Sonics were nearly an hour late arriving to the arena. The team stayed in Santa Monica and the 4:30 p.m. bus didn't pull into Staples Center until 90 minutes later. Normally the team likes to arrive about 2 ½ hours before tip-off.

Jayda Evans: 206-464-2067 or jevans@seattletimes.com