The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant drives to the basket between the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett, left, and P.J. Brown during second-quarter action of Game Three last night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

AP / Mark Avery

LOS ANGELES — Phil Jackson certainly has lofty expectations for Lamar Odom.

The former URI star and current Lakers standout has fallen into his coach’s doghouse in this series. He didn’t play in the fourth quarter of Game Two, the Lakers choosing instead to go with several shooters who combined to hit seven 3-pointers and nearly orchestrated a great comeback win.

After the game, Jackson said: “Lamar got confused out there tonight, and that was difficult for him. … Rather than just taking a shot or making the right play, it looked liked he was a confused player out there at times.”

Odom disagreed. He said he knew exactly where he should be, and said, “I disagree with Phil. But we’re cool.”

Perhaps Jackson’s issues are with expectations. While Odom had 12 points, 7 rebounds and 1½ assists, Jackson wants more. A lot more.

“I’ve given him a little bit of information, you know, some video work to do and to think about, and some support, basically,” Jackson said. “We need Lamar to play the type of game he can give us, a 10-12 rebound game and six or eight assists.”

That type of production would put Odom in the range for a triple-double. Perhaps he’s simply not that type of player.

The consequences ...

Bill Belichick, Tedy Bruschi, Jay-Z, Beyonce and Curt Schilling have all sat in the best seats in the house at TD Banknorth Garden. They are the four seats that adjoin the visiting team’s bench.

After Schilling and his family sat in the primo seats for Game Two, the Red Sox pitcher posted his thoughts on his blog and criticized Kobe Bryant for barking at his teammates most of the night. Apparently, Schilling doesn’t get out much. Bryant is the Lakers’ captain and is known for his bulldog-style leadership. It’s a style that doesn’t bother the Lakers at all.

“One of the things that Kobe does is he’s a very inspiring captain,” said Jackson. “I saw that in the tape and I got some comments from people that saw it in the video that he pocketed (Vladimir) Radmanovic on the leg. That’s the type of thing that as a coach I’m OK with it. Sometimes Vlady needs even more than that. He needs a dose of reality to get him back in where he’s got to go.”

Jackson has an easy answer for the eavesdropping that goes on from the fans with the front-row seats: Kick them out.

“I’ve been against that for as long as I’ve been coaching. Those people don’t belong there,” he said. “Somebody is going to get hurt. But that becomes part of what the NBA is about, being close to the action and close to the scene. We have to suffer the consequences because of it.”

A key adjustment

As the series made its way to the West Coast, Lakers special assistant Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reminisced about L.A.’s first NBA Finals victory over Boston, in 1985.

“We were very, very upset about having lost the year before to the Celtics. The incident with Kevin McHale tackling Kurt Rambis was very fresh in our minds, although it had happened a year earlier,” Abdul-Jabbar said, referring to McHale clotheslining Rambis in Game Four of the finals a year earlier.

“We wanted to do something to wipe the smile off the faces of the Celtics. They thought they could increase the rough play and push us off of our game, which they did in 1984. So in 1985, we were ready for that and did what we needed to do to win, and we had to deal with the rough play.

“That’s just an adjustment in style and actually it helped our team.”

Learned from Russell

Abdul-Jabbar, 61, still the NBA’s leading career scorer, has ties to the Celtics.

As a high school star in New York, he saw some Boston games at Madison Square Garden, met Bill Russell and modeled his game after the Celtics great.

“Bill Russell taught me a lot about the game, just from watching,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “Position on the court, Bill Russell was always very aware of that, and I learned for myself from watching him.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

kmcnamar@projo.com