Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant suffered a nasal fracture during the Western Conference's 152-149 win over the East on Sunday night, the team announced on its website.
Bryant was bloodied by a hard foul from Miami's Dwyane Wade and stayed in the game, but he left to be evaluated afterward. A CT scan revealed a broken nose.
The Lakers said Monday that the team will give an update on Bryant's health Tuesday after his expected visit with ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. John Rehm.
Bryant didn't attend the postgame media session Sunday.
"Yeah, I obviously didn't try to draw no blood, but I took a foul," Wade said afterward. "Kobe fouled me two times in a row, so he's still got one up on me. But I'm glad that everything was cool and we got back to being competitive and having fun."
During the game, Bryant surpassed Michael Jordan as the NBA All-Star Game's greatest scorer, breaking Jordan's record of 262 points on a dunk with 4:57 left in the third quarter. Bryant ended the night with 27 points and now has 271 for his career. He passed Oscar Robertson (246 points) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (251) earlier in the game.
"Tonight, he does what he normally does," Wade said of Bryant. "He got 27. He's Kobe Bryant. He scores the ball. He's a tough cover. But it's great being a little piece of history. He's one of the best of all time. We will one day say we had the honor of playing against one of the greatest players to ever play the game of basketball."
Wade also suggested that Kobe might not have the All-Star scoring record for long considering how Kevin Durant, the MVP of Sunday's game, led the West with 36 points to bring his total to 85 in just three All-Star appearances. LeBron has scored 207 career points in the league's midseason showcase game and will also soon be closing in on Kobe.
Bryant spent the final seconds of Sunday's game playfully yet pointedly chastising LeBron Jamesfor passing -- not once, but twice -- instead of taking a shot that could have tied the game or sent it into overtime.
The second of James' two passes -- a poorly thrown skip pass -- was picked off by Blake Griffin with the East trailing by three points and just 1.9 seconds left on the clock. As Griffin was being fouled after the steal, an animated Bryant walked over to James and pleaded with him to shoot the ball in that situation.
What may have made James' preference to pass so puzzling to Bryant was that he had already tied an All-Star Game record by making six 3-pointers.
"Yeah, he was telling me to shoot it," LeBron said afterward, still sounding dejected from a late-game breakdown that soured a performance in which he had 36 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds to nearly lead the East back from a 21-point second-half deficit. "I [saw] my teammate open for a split-second. When I tried to throw it late, that's what usually happens and it results in a turnover. Definitely, I wish I could have that one back."
But there's no one in the league quite like Bryant as a closer. And he showed no signs of pain when he was ragging James on one of the very few problems in his game.
"That's the type of guy he is," West coach Scott Brooks said. "He's not going to let anybody know that he was in pain or had any issues. The guy is as competitive as I've seen. He was going to give everything and not let us know. That's what makes him the special player that he is."
