BOSTON -- Despite finishing with a near double-double (nine points and 10 rebounds) in the Los Angeles Lakers' 91-84 Game 3 NBA Finals victory Tuesday over the Boston Celtics, Andrew Bynum suffered a setback in his ongoing battle with his injured right knee.
A game after playing a personal postseason best 39 minutes Sunday, Bynum played just 29 minutes in Game 3 and only four minutes in the fourth quarter after tweaking his knee that has a slight tear of the meniscus in it and was drained last week prior to the start of the championship round.
Bynum said he first bothered the knee in the third quarter while chasing down a loose ball.
"I stopped real hard and I just felt like a twinge," Bynum said. "I notified the training staff and everything so I came out then."
The 7-foot, 289-pound center then tweaked his knee again with 5:17 remaining in the third quarter when he blocked a shot by Boston's Kendrick Perkins.
"[I felt a twinge] again on that block on Perkins," Bynum said. "I think it was just quick movements and sudden things I feel it and then the pain normally goes away and it did."
The fifth-year veteran who is averaging 9.8 points and 7.5 rebounds in the playoffs said that the team's cross-country flight Monday did not cause any complications with the knee, but after the two twinges Tuesday, his status could be affected in Game 4.
"It's going to be a little questionable Thursday," Bynum said. "There's a lot of swelling in there because of the couple of little tweaks I got today. What I'm going to do is attack it all day [Wednesday], probably get three treatments in and then take it from there."
Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he kept Bynum on the bench for most of the fourth quarter because he liked how Lamar Odom was performing.
"That was a lineup decision at the time," Jackson said. "[Bynum] had gotten -- tweaked his knee a little bit in that third quarter and come out, and I wanted to shorten his time. But that particular moment I thought it would be best to have Lamar in. Lamar played well tonight."
Dave McMenamin covers the Lakers for ESPNLosAngeles.com. Follow him on Twitter.