I am astonished, from the other side of the globe, at the determination of Kobe Bryant.

The man suffered a broken nose and an apparent concussion in the All-Star Game on Sunday … and three days later he scored 31 and played 33 minutes. While wearing a mask to protect his nose and while admitting to “throbbing neck pain” from whiplash.

What does it take to get him out of the lineup? An elephant gun?

The last time he missed a game?

The final two weeks of the 2009-10 season, when he sat four of the final five games because of knee and finger injuries. And the Lakers already had wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.

(Apparently, if you can prove to Kobe that a game doesn’t really matter, just ahead of the playoffs, which his team is about to win … he will take a few days off.)

Since then? He has played in 117 consecutive regular-season games, including all 82 last year and all 35 this year despite a ruptured tendon in his wrist and, now, the injuries suffered from the cheap shot delivered by Dwayne Wade.

If we add 33 playoffs games from the previous two seasons, he has played in 150 straight Lakers games. Take it to 152 in you care to include All-Star Games, which we normally would not — but apparently you can get seriously hurt by churlish members of the Miami Heat, so maybe those two ought to count.

Kobe’s persistence in returning to the lineup is perhaps not quite healthy. Certainly physically, and perhaps mentally. Some suggest he has his eyes set on the NBA scoring record and, at age 33, he hates missing even one game, knowing the clock is ticking.

Certainly, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record (38,387) is not out of reach. Kobe has 28,865 points, about 9,500 behind the all-time leader. If he can average 2,000 points per season for four more years (and he’s scored at least 2,000 five of the past six seasons), in addition to whatever he scores in the final 15 games of this one … he will be awfully close to Kareem.

Maybe that’s what motivates him.

Or maybe he’s just one of those guys, and every industry has them, who are so wrapped up in their “work” that they never miss a day. I worked with a guy, Claude Anderson, who didn’t call in sick for 30 years straight. It took a stroke to keep him from going to work.

Kobe has become the ultimate “playing hurt” guy in the NBA, and not just because he does it so often, but because he so often plays very very well when he’s playing hurt.

That’s 28.5 points per game he is averaging this year, with the snapped tendon and, now the broken nose and concussion.

He may regret all this when he is 50 years old, but at the moment, I have to give him credit for being there for tipoff every night. No matter what is ruptured or broken or throbbing.