"We've now had two Andrew Bynum scares in 11 days, which is one prolific horror-film production rate – and in this case nicely bookends the recent release of "Scream 4."

Wes Craven presents: "Buried at Wounded Knee ... or Alive!? The Andrew Bynum Story."

To understand the depth to which the latest scare Friday night shook the Lakers, Phil Jackson released his entire team from the bench to go to the other end of the court and offer the fallen Bynum support. So Trey Johnson and Devin Ebanks were out of place on the court in their sportcoats and jeans, Theo Ratliff was ready to donate his one still-decent knee to the cause, and a semi-circle of Lakers didn't know whether they'd need to make room for a stretcher to be rolled in.

Jackson saw Bynum try to get up once and fail, which connoted a level of seriousness that wound up being altogether premature.

"It's very hard to gauge," Jackson said Saturday. "They appear to be devastating. He's down. He's not getting up. ..."

Although Jackson eventually shrugged it all off – "Go figure," he said, leaving it in the moment – it's certainly an ongoing issue for Bynum, who is not just a boy who cried wolf. The length of his recent siestas in the paint during games have not jibed with how long he gets sidelined in the future, but he stays down because it's almost a Pavlovian response now when something in the right knee barks loudly enough to remind him what fragile material is cased in that big brace.

"More than anything, he kind of scared himself a little," Kobe Bryant said Saturday. "He thinks the worst."

Bryant said this simply – not dismissing Bynum's reactions, not laughing at them. Bryant is the guy who once came out to the court the day after Devean George writhed in pain under the basket after spraining his ankle and sprawled out there in the same spot George went down, rolling around and flailing about and cracking up teammates with utter mockery of George's miscalculation as to his injury severity.

George had chronic ankle problems, though not to the degree of Bynum's knee issues. Certainly George was never as important to championship bids as Bynum is. With Bynum, there is a handle-with-care wrap – and rap."