The Morning Journal is reporting that it looks as if point guard Bimbo Coles will miss the remainder of the season after he had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee yesterday at the Cleveland Clinic.

''I went over there (to the hospital) this morning,'' Cavs coach John Lucas said. ''It's more than likely he won't be back (this year).''

Cavaliers center Chris Mihm also had an MRI on his knee yesterday, but the diagnosis doesn't seem to be as bad.

''He's hurting, so I need to give him some rest,'' Lucas said. ''He bumped knees in the (Rookie Challenge Game) and has never recovered.''

Teams that make midseason trades usually have to show patience while the new players adapt to their surroundings.

But that wasn't the case for the Indiana Pacers on Friday, as the unfamiliar faces provided instant gratification and the familiar ones looked mostly lost in a 103-93 loss to Cleveland at Conseco Fieldhouse.

 




Brad Miller, Ron Artest and Kevin Ollie, who had gone through two practices since Tuesday's trade from Chicago, combined to hit 20-of-27 shots. The holdover Pacers hit just 17-of-52 attempts, and most of them did little else to contribute.

On one small level, one of the most celebrated NBA players ever to leave high school directly for the pros couldn't imagine being LeBron James.

Kobe Bryant said last night he could not envision himself as a high schooler on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

``As a junior?'' Bryant said before his L.A. Lakers faced the Cavs at Gund Arena. ``No, I never would have gone to class.''

Bryant was joking.

But he was very serious when he talked about making the jump in 1996 from Lower Merion High School outside Philadelphia to the NBA. Bryant was selected 13th overall by the Charlotte Hornets, then traded to the Lakers on draft day for Vlade Divac.

Bryant now is considered one of the NBA's best. But in his rookie year, he averaged 15.5 minutes and 7.6 points, quite an adjustment for the National High School Player of the Year.

``You have your good times,'' Bryant said. ``You have your down times. You have your misery times.''

And the misery times were just that.

``There was a lot of space between those times,'' Bryant said. ``But when they occurred it was like they would last forever.''

Bryant knows of James, the St. Vincent-St. Mary junior who was featured on the SI cover a week ago. The two met one time briefly at an All-Star game, but Bryant said it wasn't enough to form a relationship.

Bryant said he did not go see James on Wednesday night because he didn't know he was playing. Instead, Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal attended with ex-Cav and ex-Laker Ron Harper.

Bryant's advice to James would be basic.

``Do what you want,'' Bryant said. ``If you want to go to college, you'll be able to learn a lot, I guess. I don't know. People tell me it's a great experience going to college. (If you don't go) you miss out on keg parties and things like that.

``If you come to the NBA, you have to be ready to make a sacrifice. And it's a huge sacrifice.''

Because?

``It might not be a business from your standpoint, but it's a business from other people's perspective,'' Bryant said. ``People are going to be paying you millions of dollars to put a good product out there. From that standpoint, the game becomes a little more serious.''

Cavs coach John Lucas said he worked with Bryant ``every day for two years'' when Bryant was in high school. Lucas didn't think it was overwhelming for James to be on the cover of SI, but he did think it vital for James to get an honest assessment of his skills.

``You need to get advice from guys who have been in the league instead of talking to an AAU coach or some shoe company,'' Lucas said. ``You can have somebody assess you. I do it when they play with our guys over the summer. I tell them all the time, `When you play against a pro in the summer, he's just having fun and you're playing at the highest level you can play. When you play against a pro when the season starts, it's a different pro.' ''

Bryant said he occasionally thinks back to what it might have been like in college -- even for one year. But now that he has millions of dollars, a palatial estate outside Los Angeles and two championship rings, he can't imagine making a different decision.

``If (James) wants to make the jump and go to the NBA, he's as good as everybody says he is or he's not,'' Bryant said. ``If he is, he still has to improve his game. If he's not, he has to improve his game anyway. It doesn't really matter. When you come to the NBA you have to improve no matter who you are.''

Until then, Bryant said James should think of getting better -- especially when he winds up on the cover of national magazines.

``It's nice to see that as long as he can take it in stride, see it as an opportunity to improve and not being at the top of everything he'll accomplish,'' Bryant said. ``See it as a starting point.''

Branson Wright of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: Apparently, Kobe Bryant has more than a solid jumper and a quick first step to the basket. Bryant also has a good right jab.

According to a witness on the Los Angeles Lakers team bus, Bryant hit teammate Samaki Walker in the eye following joking between the two players that turned into a one-punch boxing match. The incident happened as the team bus was parking in the tunnel of Gund Arena before last night's Lakers-Cavaliers game.

When asked, Bryant didn't confirm or deny the altercation. Walker, meanwhile, said: "I don't know what everyone's talking about. Do you think Kobe would've played tonight if he would've hit me?"

Walker, who is on the injured list with a hyperextended right elbow, wore a bandage under his right eye that appeared swollen. He wasn't wearing the patch nor did he appear to have any swelling during the team's shootaround yesterday morning.

Shaquille O'Neal hasn't seen a high school basketball game in years. He broke that drought on Wednesday night when he attended St. Vincent-St. Mary against Orange.

O'Neal was there to watch St.Vincent-St. Mary phenom LeBron James. It was worth the wait.

"I haven't been to a high school game in awhile but us No. 1 players must stick together," O'Neal said. "I knew who he was because I read Sports Ilustrated and I talked to a few people about him. He's a good player."

James scored 33 points in St.Vincent-St. Mary's victory. O'Neal said James has an excellent game on the high school level and he expects him to "do some damage" on the next level too.

That next level means professionally. O'Neal also said that he won't offer James any advice on going pro out of high school or going to college.

"I don't give out information because what happens to him, necessarily didn't happen to me," O'Neal said. "Experience is the best teacher. He'll have to do what's best for him and what's best for his family."

Second that emotion:

Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has some advice for James if he asks.

"Do what you want. If you want to go to college you'll be able to learn a lot, I guess. I don't know," Bryant said. "But if you come to the NBA, you have to be ready to sacrifice. It might not be a business for you, but it's a business from other people's perspective."

Trades:

With the exception of the trades between Indiana, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Dallas and Denver, the trade deadline ended quietly yesterday. The Cavs didn't make any moves.

"It's been very quiet," said Cavs coach John Lucas. "One thing the CBA [Collective Bargaining Agreement] did was make it harder for teams to make major deals. That's why I'm sold on the way we're doing it by developing our players and trying to create franchise players."

Unfortunately for the Cavs, the Mailman made one delivery in America yesterday.

All the confidence gained during a four-game winning streak may have helped Cleveland fight back from a 17-point second-quarter deficit to go up by one in the third period. But the Cavs found nothing during that successful 11-day span to keep Karl Malone from his appointed rounds.

Malone had 35 points, four shy of his season high, as Utah won its fifth straight road game, 103-92 last night before a crowd of 12,773 in Gund Arena.

Playing 35 minutes, the 17-year veteran hit 11-of-24 shots from the field, 13-of-16 from the line and added eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals. He netted 23 points in the second half. Three Cavs big men -- Chris Mihm, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Tyrone Hill -- fouled out trying to guard him.

Even with the game seemingly in hand at 95-85 with about 4 ? minutes left, Malone pilfered the inbounds pass, infuriating Cavs coach John Lucas so much that he slammed his hand on the press table.

The Cavs came into last night's game with their longest winning streak since last season and coach John Lucas expected his team to walk onto the court with a confident swagger.

"I'd like to see an arrogance that I had [as a player]," Lucas said. "Instead, I didn't see the arrogance of a team that's won four straight games."

Apparently, Lucas didn't get what he wanted.

Horrible shooting and a step-too-slow defense during the first half combined with a dominating Karl Malone led to a 103-92 Utah victory over the Cavs at Gund Arena, snapping the Cavs' four-game winning streak.

The Cavs shot 26.3 percent from the field during the first half and 36.6 percent from the field for the game. It was their lowest field-goal percentage since shooting 34.7 percent on Jan.13 at Portland.

The Jazz (30-24) won its fifth straight. This was the Jazz seventh game of its nine-game trip. Malone led the Jazz with 35 points. Andrei Kirilenko followed with 15 and John Stockton scored 12.

HIGH POINT
  Five games in seven nights? No problem for 38-year-old Karl Malone, who continued his best stretch of the season. In 40 minutes, he finished with 35 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Malone played all 24 minutes in the second half, when he scored 23 points and shot 14 free throws.

  LOW POINT
  The Jazz's defense disappeared during a 9 1/2-minute stretch that started late in the first half and continued into the third quarter. The Cavs scored on 20 of their 26 possessions in that span, when they wiped out a 43-27 deficit and tied the game, 68-68. "We just stopped guarding people," said coach Jerry Sloan.

  TURNING POINT
  Down 71-70 in the final moments of the third quarter, the Jazz executed perfectly. Malone hit a jump shot with 38 seconds remaining and Rusty LaRue nailed a three-point shot with nine-tenths of a second left, igniting a 15-3 surge that finally subdued the Cavaliers. "That three by Rusty was huge," Malone said.

At age 38, Karl Malone still has plenty of fun making life miserable for opposing fans.
     
Malone scored 35 points to lead the Utah Jazz to a 103-92 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night ? then poked fun at fans who tried to disrupt his rhythm at the foul line by hooting, hollering and waving white balloons.

"They were vocal, but didn't cross the line," said Malone, who bowed to fans chanting, "Karl, Karl," as he left the game with 41 seconds to play.
     
"It's like the fans are starting to say this guy has been doing this for 17 years, he's not going to do it much longer. I'm allowing myself to have a little more fun."
     
Malone dominated the second half by scoring 23 points as Utah won its fifth straight and improved to 5-2 on its nine-game trip, forced by the Olympics in Salt Lake City. It is the club's longest trip since an 11-game swing in the Jazz's first season of 1974-75.
     
"Everybody is making a big deal of it, but it doesn't matter," Jazz guard Bryon Russell said. "We've got to play on the road anyway."
     
Malone looked right at home ? especially at the foul line, where he made 13 of 16 free throws. He was the key factor in forcing three Cleveland players ? centers Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Chris Mihm, and forward Tyrone Hill ? to foul out.
     
"The only guy who really had a chance against him was Tyrone," Cavs coach John Lucas said. "Karl looked at me like I was nuts whenever I put somebody else in there. I told him, 'That's all I got right now."'

Memo to Mitt Romney: Cancel the fireworks. Forget the Closing Ceremony. Tell NBC not to leave just yet.
 
Let the Games keep going . . . and going . . . and going.
 
The Utah Jazz don't want to come home.
 
Playing their seventh straight road game because Olympic skaters have taken over the Delta Center, the Jazz cruised to a 103-92 victory over the previously red-hot Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night at Gund Arena.
 
The Jazz won their fifth straight. The Cavs had a four-game winning streak snapped.
 
Karl Malone scored 35 points in 40 minutes for the Jazz, whose final game during the Olympics is Wednesday at Denver.
 
Three Cleveland players -- Chris Mihm, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Tyrone Hill -- fouled out trying to stop Malone.