LOS ANGELES -- Kobe Bryant still hasn't gotten over the way his final season under then-Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson ended in a second-round sweep from the playoffs.

Bryant wants a chance to make up for it this season. He fully endorsed Jackson to fill the Lakers' coaching vacancy caused by Mike Brown's dismissal, following L.A.'s dominant 101-77 win over the Golden State Warriors on Friday.

"Phil, obviously, you guys know how I feel about Phil," Bryant said. "The one thing that's kind of always bothered me is that his last year, I wasn't able to give him my normal self because I was playing on one leg. That's always kind of eaten away at me that the last year of his career, I wasn't able to give him everything I had."

Bryant averaged just 17 points in the final two games of that four-game sweep at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 playoffs. Bryant's knee was in such bad shape the following offseason that he traveled to Germany to undergo Regenokine surgery -- a noninvasive blood manipulation procedure -- to try to repair it.

"He's too great of a coach to go out that way," Bryant said. "That's kind of my personal sentiment."

Sources told ESPNLosAngeles.com that Jackson is open to returning to coaching after spending last season away from the game and that Jackson, along with former Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, is at the top of the Lakers' list to replace interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff.

Bryant said he believed the one obstacle in Jackson's way could be the 67-year-old's health. Jackson underwent knee replacement surgery in March; however, a source close to the Hall of Famer told ESPNLosAngeles.com that Jackson is "getting better and better."