MILWAUKEE (AP) – Kobe Bryant scored 33 points to lift the Los Angeles Lakers to their ninth straight win over the Milwaukee Bucks, 111-92 on Tuesday night.

Lamar Odom added 24 points, Smush Parker had 20, and Chris Mihm scored 13 as the Lakers beat the Bucks for the 18th time in the last 20 meetings.

Bryant went 14-of-24 from the field, a game after shooting just 9-of-30 in a sluggish win over the Charlotte Bobcats on Sunday. The Lakers shot 48 percent (43-of-89).

“Right now, we need to focus on who we are as a basketball club,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said before Tuesday’s game. “I don’t live with expectations, so there’s nothing there I can say I expected. We’re just out here kind of treading water as a basketball team right now. We’re neither hot nor cold, neither fish nor fowl.”

Michael Redd scored 21 points for Milwaukee, which had its three-game winning streak snapped.

Parker scored 15 points in the first quarter. He hit two buckets in a row to give the Lakers a 76-61 lead midway through the third quarter and the Lakers stretched the lead to as many as 19 in the fourth.

T.J. Ford, who finished with 16 points, tipped in a miss and followed with a dunk to cut the lead to 97-82 midway through the fourth, but Milwaukee never got within double digits in the game’s final 20 minutes and only led early in the first quarter.

In one first-half sequence, Bryant grabbed an offensive board and Odom snagged two in the same possession before finding Parker streaking down the lane for a one-handed dunk.

A few minutes later, Parker stripped Andrew Bogut, one of his seven steals, and fed Odom, who was fouled and completed a three-point play. Then Parker hit a 3-pointer and completed a three-point play during a 16-4 run that gave the Lakers an early double-digit lead.

Milwaukee, which failed to win a fourth straight game for the second time this season, chipped away, and Jackson implored his Lakers to play better as Toni Kukoc hit a 3-pointer to cut the Lakers lead to two.

Jackson loudly cursed at his players during a timeout in an attempt to keep them focused.

It worked.

Los Angeles sprinted back out to a 61-49 lead, capped by Luke Walton’s behind the back pass to Parker, who flipped it to Bryant for an easy dunk.

Mo Williams, who scored 11 of his 14 points down the stretch in the second quarter, hit a running one-hander to make it 61-51 at the half.

Notes: Bryant needs three assists to tie Gail Goodrich for eighth on the Lakers’ all-time list at 2,863. … The last time the Bucks won four in a row was in April last season. … Jackson isn’t sure when Kwame Brown (hamstring) will return, but conceded he wouldn’t be back within the two-week period first announced. … Bucks F Joe Smith had surgery to relieve nagging pain in his left knee and will miss six to eight weeks.

AP-ES-12-06-05 2241EST

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