LOS ANGELES — And the 2008-2009 MVP is ...

As if.

That wasn't an MVP-off or a shootout between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James; it was a basketball game between Bryant's Lakers and James' Cleveland Cavaliers.

James outscored a handicapped Bryant, 23-20, and unless something changes, James is a cinch to be the most valuable player this season.

On the other hand, it was Bryant who went home happy and James who went home sad Monday night after the Lakers ran over the Cavaliers, 105-88.

Then, of course, there's the question of why everyone should place so much importance on who the MVP is.

I know everyone does. Chanting "MVP!" when one's favorite is at the free-throw line has become a ritual throughout the NBA, from here to Cleveland to Oklahoma City (well, Thunder fans have favorites too.)

The award is often taken as a statement of who's best, which it can't be if Karl Malone could beat out Michael Jordan in 1997 and 1999.

It's actually all about the narrative. Last season, the Lakers needed Bryant to be all he could be as they climbed back to elite status, making them a perfect vehicle for the MVP campaign, which Bryant won.

This season, it's the Cavaliers who need James to be all he can be as they climb into elite status, making them the perfect vehicle.

Bryant, meanwhile, is on a team with much more firepower and needs as much restraint as scoring from him. Chris Paul's Hornets aren't winning enough, nor Dwyane Wade's Heat.

Bryant and James didn't put on a fireworks show. It wasn't a duel, in the mind of either.

It was just two players sure to go down as all-time greats, matched up with each other, exciting enough to bring out another great, Jerry West, as excited at the prospect as a kid seeing his first game.

"LeBron versus Kobe never enters my mind, or LeBron versus D-Wade or LeBron versus anybody that I go against," James said before the game. "It's always a team game for me. If it was LeBron versus Kobe and we were playing tennis or golf. ...

"This is a team sport and you cannot win in this game without playing team basketball, even though we get most of the limelight, and we get most of the clippings, the team is always ahead of an individual."

Nor does the great Lakers-Cavaliers rivalry figure into it. At this point, there is a Lakers-Celtics rivalry and a Cavaliers-Celtics rivalry, but no Lakers-Cavaliers rivalry.

The Cavaliers lost a hard-fought seven-game second-round series to the Celtics last spring.

This fall, when they had to go to Boston for the opener, the Cavaliers marched to the dressing room before the game, rather than stay on the floor to see the Celtics get their championship rings.

"You know, we played the Celtics 11 times last season," James said. "We only played the Lakers twice."

If Bryant is no less intent on winning, and has always been, when he was James' age — 24 — he was known to shoot it out with players such as Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.

Bryant said it was never personal, he was just playing hard. Of course, in those days, when Bryant played hard, he just naturally shot the ball, a lot.

In the one season-plus that this Lakers team has been back among the elite, they have seen a new, more restrained Bryant, as in the recent win over Miami, when he hounded Wade on defense and wound up taking only 14 shots himself.

"I think Kobe still comes to the games, looking for challenges, night in, night out," Coach Phil Jackson said. "I think his challenge level has become a little more refined. He does what the teams needs him to do."

Bryant did exactly that Monday night, dislocating the ring finger on his right hand trying to knock the ball out of James' hands on the Cavaliers' second possession.

Calling it "the worst pain I ever played with," Bryant played 40 minutes with it, hounding James into an 8-for-25 night from the floor.

Kobe and LeBron might not have even made the top 10 highlights on ESPN's "SportsCenter," the more so because this game was televised by TNT.

They just played basketball, at as high a level as it gets.