(接上文)
"He made me come back out today. My finger was numb. I had to touch a ball for a minute or so. It felt like I had four fingers, but I guess he knew what I was thinking and he called the phone right there. I don't know how he got the number."

As O'Neal returned in the fourth quarter, Bryant headed to the locker room after banging his right knee on the previous possession.

"As I tried to walk it off, the knee just kept on swelling," Bryant said. "So I had to go back into the training room, put some ice on it, to see if I could get the swelling down and to also see if I could bend it."

Bryant returned wearing a wrap around the knee with 4:36 to go as O'Neal made two free throws, giving the Lakers the lead for good at 73-71.

"I did not know what they were doing, whether they were amputating his finger or what was going on in the locker room," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We just got him back on the floor and Kobe ended up with a banged-up knee, so we tag-teamed it for a little bit and were able to survive until they both got out there."

After Derek Fisher made a 3-pointer to widen the margin to five points, O'Neal and Bryant made all the big plays down the stretch. San Antonio's Steve Smith drilled a 3-pointer, but O'Neal answered with a baby hook for a 78-74 edge with 2 1/2 minutes left.

A struggling Tim Duncan and Malik Rose made jumpers around a free throw by O'Neal, cutting the deficit to one point with 1:13 to play. Just 10 seconds later, O'Neal hammered home a lob from Robert Horry.