Kobe Bryant scored six of his 35 points in the final 3:51 and the Los Angeles Lakers beat Seattle 106-99 Tuesday night, snapping a three-game skid and sending the SuperSonics to their fifth straight loss.

Rookie Kevin Durant had 25 points for the Sonics, who are league-worst 2-13 in their first season under coach P.J. Carlesimo - matching the poorest start in franchise history. They began their inaugural 1967-68 season 2-14 under Al Bianchi. Seattle has lost 14 consecutive games against Western Conference teams, including five last season.

The Lakers had a 77-67 lead when Seattle's Nick Collison drove to the basket and sustained a cut below the right eye as Bryant took a swipe at the ball. Collison wasn't able to take the free throws, so Lakers coach Phil Jackson was allowed by the NBA rules to select any one of the Sonics to replace Collison at the line.

Jackson chose Mouhamed Sene, who reported in for the first time after playing only 13 minutes this season in three games and was 19-for-35 on free throws in his 31 previous NBA contests. The 7-foot center made the first and missed the second, after which the Lakers increased their margin to 85-73 entering the fourth.

Jordan Farmar hit a 3-pointer, his first points of the game, to give Los Angeles a 92-79 lead with 8:11 to play and connected again from behind the arc less than 2 minutes later. The Sonics got as close as 102-97 on Durant's three-point play with 13.2 seconds left, but Bryant helped clinch it with a pair of free throws.

Seven of Seattle's losses this season have been by margins of seven points or fewer.

Bryant had 21 points in the first half and Lamar Odom had 13, but the Lakers could do no better than a 54-all tie at intermission. In a game that included nine lead changes and ties, neither team led by more than seven points until Lakers guard Derek Fisher sank three free throws for a 75-66 advantage after he was fouled by Earl Watson behind the arc with 3:17 left in the third quarter.

Bryant had 14 points in the first quarter, including a 19-foot jumper that edged him past 1985 NBA scoring champ Bernard King for 32nd place on the all-time list. Bryant's next target is John Stockton, who is 25 points ahead of him.

Notes: Jackson's handles timeouts differently than his peers. First, he huddles with his assistants instead of talking to the players right away at the bench and drawing up plays. "I like to collect information from my coaches - go over our past possessions, look at how many successful possessions we've had and how many turnovers we've got,'' Jackson said. "We're competing with a sound system most of the time, a dance crew, or something else going on that's a noise factor. So I like to tell the players that this is the time they can support each other, talk to each other, towel off and get a drink. We only need about 20 seconds with them, anyway. I mean, I'm not going to give them a lecture on how to play basketball. But if we have something we have to correct, we go in there a little bit earlier.'' ... Among the sellout crowd was new Angels CF Torii Hunter, in town for Wednesday's introductory press conference. One thing he has in common with the Lakers - he moved to Los Angeles from Minnesota. "I've been here a couple of times, but this is my first Laker game as an L.A. player,'' Hunter said. "These guys treat you with so much respect, man, and I love it. They're spoiling me already.''

The Los Angeles Lakers enjoyed the first half of their six-game stretch against the Eastern Conference much better than the second.

Los Angeles tries to end a three-game losing streak on Tuesday night when it hosts a Seattle SuperSonics team that has dropped four straight.

The Lakers (7-6) began their string of games against the East by beating Detroit, Chicago and Indiana by an average of 20 points. But after road losses to Milwaukee and Boston, Los Angeles returned home and blew a 12-point halftime lead in falling 102-100 to New Jersey on Sunday.

The Nets led by as many as 12 in the fourth quarter, but Kobe Bryant had a chance to tie the game after getting fouled shooting a 3-pointer with six seconds to play. Bryant made the first two free throws, giving him 15 points for the quarter and 31 in the game, but his final attempt went in and out, preserving the win for New Jersey.

"The start of the fourth quarter we didn't execute properly, they jumped out to a huge lead on us and it was an uphill battle from the point forward," said Bryant, who had made 15 straight free throws before his final miss. "They made some adjustments, we had to counter that ... but we just didn't do it enough in time to stop the bleeding."

Los Angeles is one of the league's highest-scoring teams, averaging 105.2 points. Bryant aside, a good chunk of the team's points lately had been coming from the bench, which scored 73 points - the most from Laker reserves in more than 19 years - during a 106-78 win against Chicago Nov. 18. But during the three-game losing streak, the bench has combined for just 86 points - only 20 against the Nets.

"I thought our bench could have brought us back into this game, but they just weren't up to the task tonight," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "They made real poor decisions and gave us a 10-point deficit in a matter of four minutes (in the fourth quarter)."

Seattle (2-12), meanwhile, has lost four in a row and began the season 0-8 before winning consecutive games in Miami and Atlanta. In their 12 losses, the Sonics have rarely been close, falling by an average of 11.4 points.

Like the Lakers, the Sonics lost a close home game to the Nets recently, 98-93 on Friday. Seattle then hosted San Antonio on Sunday, and after being tied 64-64 at the half, scored just 37 points in the second half on its way to a 116-101 defeat.

"The way we played (Sunday) is good enough to beat lesser teams. It's not good enough to beat the Spurs," first-year Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo said.

Star rookie Kevin Durant had his best day shooting as a pro, going 11-for-17 on his way to 25 points. Wally Szczerbiak led the Sonics with 27 points off the bench, but San Antonio grabbed 10 more rebounds than Seattle and picked up its defense after halftime.

"Each game we learn more and more," said Durant, whose 18.9 points lead the team. "I'm just excited for the next game and I hope that we'll get out there in L.A. and execute and get a 'W'."

The Sonics allow 108.6 points and commit 17.4 turnovers per game, two of the five worst totals in the league.

Bryant averaged 48.0 points in a pair of wins against the Sonics in April to help Los Angeles take three of four in the season series, including both meetings at Staples Center.