Record: 48-28.

Sunday: Portland at Toyota Center, 6 p.m.

TV/radio: FSH, NBA TV; 610 AM, 850 AM (Spanish).

LOS ANGELES - Kobe Bryant did not say anything.

No one said anything to him to inspire the sort of trash-talk duel that punctuated his demolition of the Rockets last month. Ron Artest had spent the night defending Lamar Odom, and for most of the night, Bryant was quiet in every way.

But the Rockets were hanging around, a shot or two off the Lakers' pace, when Bryant made two plays that screamed once more that he was there and more than the Rockets could handle.

Bryant stepped around a screen to hit a 3-pointer, then ducked around a pick to nail another, taking the Lakers to an 11-point lead. The Rockets never recovered, and the Lakers cruised through the final few minutes to finish their season sweep with a 93-81 win Friday night at Staples Center.

Bryant scored just 20 points, making seven of just 11 shots. But once he hit those back-to-back 3s, the Rockets were done. Moments later, Artest fouled Pau Gasol inside and was hit with a technical foul, helping the Lakers push the lead back to a game-high 13 with 3:24 left.

Shortly after that, Yao Ming was done for the night with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Gasol took advantage to finish with 23 points. Artest led the Rockets with 21 and added nine rebounds, but the Rockets could not put together a consistent run to gain control, losing a third consecutive road game since their win in San Antonio gave them the Southwest Division lead.

The losses in Phoenix and Los Angeles dropped the Rockets from third in the Western Conference to sixth, though just 11/2 games behind the Spurs in the Southwest.

The Rockets and Lakers spent the first 30 minutes of the game passing the lead back and forth, with neither able to move more than three points ahead of the other once the Rockets made up for the Lakers' fast start.

When Shane Battier hit a 3-pointer five minutes into the second half to tie the game, there had been 22 ties or lead changes. The Lakers finally hit the Rockets with a quick burst of sensational minutes to take control.

Bryant drove to a hard slam before Trevor Ariza blocked an Artest jumper. Ariza hit a 3, and Gasol finished a break, sending the Rockets quickly to a timeout. When Derek Fisher put in another 3-pointer, the Lakers had a 10-point lead, their largest of the game so far, with 3? minutes remaining before the fourth quarter.

The Rockets cut that lead in half before the fourth quarter and remained within range of a shot or two for the next seven minutes. But from that third-quarter Lakers run on, the Rockets seemed to be barely hanging on, teetering on the brink of getting taken out with one more L.A. scoring burst.

After a slow start in which the Rockets needed more than four minutes to get their second field goal and the Lakers built a rapid eight-point lead, the Rockets' defense picked up, the offense settled down, and the game grew tight for most of the first half.

The Rockets had played the Lakers evenly through most of the half with Bryant doing llittle. He scored just three points in the first 21 minutes of the half, with Phil Jackson calling a timeout after Luis Scola sank a jumper for a 37-35 Rockets lead, the eighth tie or lead change in a span of five minutes.

Holding Bryant in check for so long offered the Rockets little reason to feel encouraged. He had scored just six points in the first half of the teams' previous meeting, then poured in 31 in the second half, including 18 in a dominant fourth quarter.

Friday, he immediately sank a 3-pointer after the timeout and knocked down two free throws and a pull-up jumper in the lane in a 9-4 Lakers run. Artest beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer to tie the game at 45.

For all the stout defense they played, the Rockets could not put together any sort of run.

But the Lakers seemed certain to have at least one scoring burst, bringing a test of whether the Rockets could stop it and then answer it.

The damage came suddenly. This time, the Rockets could say nothing, and Bryant did not need to.

jonathan.feigen@chron.com