NEW ORLEANS -- Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant will have an MRI on his right shoulder Thursday after tweaking it during a 96-80 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday.
While Bryant said it's unclear if he'll play Friday at San Antonio, he did try to downplay the injury.
"I've played on a torn labrum before," he said after scoring 14 points in 30 minutes. "I'm not too concerned about it."
Bryant suffered what the team called soreness in that shoulder with 4:14 in the third quarter, when he drove baseline for a two-handed dunk.
"It felt fine when I went up, didn't feel too good when I came down," Bryant said.
He grabbed his shoulder as he ran back down the court and checked out of the game a few minutes later.
"I was trying to figure out what makes it hurt, sitting on the bench, just kind of moving around, trying to figure out what's going to activate it," Bryant said. "I couldn't find it. But normally, when I find it, then I know how to play around it."
Bryant checked back in with five minutes left in the fourth quarter as the Lakers trailed 87-75. He immediately favored his shoulder and tried to rebound and dribble with his left hand.
But it became clear something was wrong when he shot and made a turnaround 14-foot jumper with just his left hand.
"Obviously after I saw that everything he did was with the left hand, then I knew then, let's get him out of there," Lakers coach Byron Scott said.
Scott said he wasn't aware that Bryant's shoulder was so sore when he put him in the game.
"When he went back out, he felt he could play," Scott said. "He always says, he's got two arms so you don't necessarily have to use one all the time. But like I said, after I saw him shoot it a couple times and then just bringing it up the court -- one dribble with his right then he switched and dribbled with his left. That pretty much let me know that it was pretty sore."
Bryant played after missing the Lakers' previous two games to rest. It was his first game in nearly a week.
Depending on the MRI results, Scott said he'll continue to play Bryant in spots and on a minutes limit in an effort to help Bryant recover from playing too much earlier in the season.
Bryant, who averaged a team-high 35.4 minutes during the team's first 27 games, said he isn't sure when his body will feel as good as before, but he tried to downplay talk of fatigue.
"We make a lot of it, but the reality is, I'm doing some pretty phenomenal things in 30 minutes," Bryant said. "My body is not that [expletive] up."