Bruised right wrist benches Houston

New York — Allan Houston missed the second half of the New York Knicks’ 114-109 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers Thursday night because of a bruised right wrist.

Houston injured his wrist playing defense against Rick Fox early in the first half and didn’t return after halftime. X-rays were negative and he is day to day.

“It just really tightened up on me,” he said. “As the game went on, it got stiffer and stiffer.”

Houston, a 93 percent foul shooter coming into the game, was bothered by the wrist as evidenced by two missed free throws with 4:25 left in the half.

“I felt like when I missed those two free throws, it was really affecting me,” Houston said. “At halftime, it seemed like it really locked up on me.”

New York has five days off for the All-Star break before resuming play Wednesday against Golden State.

Spurs guard Jackson suffers sprained ankle

Denver — San Antonio Spurs guard Stephen Jackson left midway through the first quarter against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night after spraining his right ankle. Jackson went down under the basket after a missed shot by Denver’s Juwan Howard about five minutes into the game.

Jackson crawled over the baseline and stayed there for a couple of minutes before being helped to the locker room. Jackson, in his second season, is San Antonio’s third-leading scorer at 12.2 points per game and averages 3.6 rebounds