updated 12:27 a.m. ET Jan. 11, 2007

HOUSTON - Dikembe Mutombo swatted the shot by the kid half his age, then wagged his index finger to the crowd’s delight.

Mutombo stuffed another shot by Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum 3 minutes later to move past Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and into second place on the all-time blocks list.

The 40-year-old Mutombo had five blocks in all and matched a season high with 19 rebounds in the Houston Rockets’ 102-77 win over the Lakers on Wednesday night. He now has 3,191 blocks, two more than Abdul-Jabbar on the all-time list.

“When I came into the league 16 years ago, I told myself that I just want to be remembered for one thing,” Mutombo said, “just to be one of the great defensive players to ever play this game.”

The Rockets have won seven of nine games since Yao Ming broke a bone in his right leg and much of it is due to the suddenly spry Mutombo, who’s had double-digit rebound totals in eight consecutive games.

“It’s amazing, just the way I’m playing,” said the 7-foot-2 Mutombo. “Even to myself, I’m sitting down like, ’Whoa, is Mutombo really playing like that?’ I haven’t seen myself jumping for a rebound like that for a while.”

Mutombo’s three children — ages 9, 5 and 3 — have nagged him lately about when he was going to pass Abdul-Jabbar. He had only one block in each of Houston’s last four games.

“Now, they’re going to leave me alone,” he said. “No more asking, ’Daddy! When are you going to block all the shots and break the record?”’

Mutombo is still 639 blocks from all-time leader, former Rocket and fellow African Hakeem Olajuwon. Mutombo hasn’t said when he’ll retire, but promises he won’t stick around long enough to threaten Olajuwon’s mark.

“I will leave that to my brother,” he said. “He can keep that torch for the next generation.”

While Mutombo led the Rockets’ stifling defense, Juwan Howard scored a season-high 23 points and Rafer Alston added 20.

Houston also snapped a four-game losing streak to the Lakers with little scoring help from Tracy McGrady, who’d topped 30 points in each of his last six games. McGrady had only eight points and appeared to aggravate his troublesome back late in the first half. He also had 12 assists.

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Kobe Bryant scored 20 points, but went 6-for-18 from the field, for the Lakers, who were held to a season-low point total. Bryant suffered a minor groin strain in the second quarter and left the game with 3:33 left after playing 34 minutes.

Bryant said after the game the injury was “tight,” but said he would be ready to play on Friday against Orlando.

“I will let it chill and I should be fine,” he said.

The Lakers shot 34 percent (26 of 76) and mustered a season-low 31 points in the second half.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Mutombo was only part of his team’s offensive struggles.

“The Rockets played good defense and Mutombo had some big blocks and we couldn’t shoot the ball in the second half,” Jackson said. “Our passing failed us and we didn’t shoot the ball well.”

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