On the Court With... Kobe Bryant

by Matt Christopher

  But the Lakers sent a message in game one. Working the triangle to perfection, they fed the ball to Shaq over and over again and he came up big, scoring 43 points and pulling down 19 rebounds. “When he gets in that kind of groove,” said Bryant, “you’ve got to get the ball to him.” The Lakers won, 104-87.

  In game two, L.A. got off to another quick start, playing great team basketball. Bryant didn’t attempt his first shot, a seventeen-foot jumper, until there were only three minutes left in the first quarter. He went up high as the Pacers’ Jalen Rose jumped up to try to block his shot.

  Bryant was too quick and got his shot off clean. But as it soared through the hoop for two points, he came back down to earth and his right foot landed on Rose’s foot. Bryant’s foot turned grotesquely and he fell hard, a wince on his face. He got back up and tried to shake off the injury, but left the game a few moments later with a badly sprained ankle.

  Fortunately, Glen Rice took up the scoring slack and Brian Shaw stepped in for Bryant and led L.A. to a 111-104 victory. But with Bryant’s status for game three unclear, Rice spoke for everyone after the game when he said, “When you lose a key player, one of the things you have to do is come together collectively. We may well be short again. Guys have to step up again.”

  Bryant was crushed by the injury and did everything he could to prepare for game three, but was unable to play. Without him, the Lakers lost, 100-91. Suddenly, the Pacers seemed poised to take control of the series.

  Few people expected Bryant to play in game four. He tried the ankle in practice but found it was still too sore. Many observers expected him to miss the remainder of the Finals.

  An hour before game four, Bryant was still receiving treatment from team doctors. Although there was little danger he would hurt his foot more by playing on it, he was still in significant pain.

  But when Bryant took the court before the game, his adrenaline started pumping and the ankle, heavily taped, began to feel better. He told Jackson he could play, and the coach put him in the starting lineup. The Lakers knew they couldn’t let the Pacers tie the series.

  The two teams played each other even, neither giving in. When Shaq missed a short jump hook at the buzzer, the game was tied, 104-104; it was going to overtime.

  Bryant’s ankle hadn’t been much of a factor thus far. He’d played well, but during time-outs could be seen noticeably limping. Now he had to play extra time.

  Just a few minutes into overtime, the Lakers received a severe blow. Battling for a rebound, O’Neal was called for his sixth foul and had to leave the game.

  Lakers fans groaned. O’Neal had been playing a great game and his loss gave the Pacers a huge advantage.

  But as O’Neal trudged to the bench, Kobe Bryant approached him, winked, and whispered something. As Bryant said later, “This is the game you dream about as you’re growing up. You lose yourself in the moment. You’re consumed by the game.”

  Coach Jackson sensed the time for L.A. to win was now. He later said, “I broke down our offense and went to an open-floor game for Kobe.”

  Indiana immediately went on the attack. Their center, Rik Smits, hit a jump hook to draw the Pacers to within one of L.A., 112-111. Then Bryant got the ball.

  He never thought about his late misses in the playoffs in the past. He drove down the court, stopped, stutter-stepped, and faked a drive. Then, as the defense reacted, he stepped back to give himself some room and calmly took a jump shot.

  Swish! Nothing but net! The Lakers led, 114-111.

  But Smits responded with another jump hook. Once again, the Lakers gave the ball to Bryant.

  The Pacers must not have believed his earlier basket, because they gave Bryant some room to shoot again. Once more he stutter-stepped, faked, stepped back, and…

  Swish! Nothing but net again. Lakers 116, Pacers 113. “I just relaxed like I was in my backyard,” Bryant said later.

  The Pacers then answered with two free throws by Miller. But as the Pacer defense blanketed Bryant, Brian Shaw put back a miss by Rice to make the score 118-115. Then Smits hit two free throws to bring the Pacers back to within one at 118-117.

  The Lakers had the ball with 28 seconds left. They tried to work down the clock. Forced to act before the 24-second clock ran out, Brian Shaw put up a shot.

  It bounced off the rim.

  Out of nowhere, Bryant flashed in, grabbed the rebound, and put it back to give the Lakers a 120-117 lead. The Pacers managed to sink a free throw in the final seconds, but Bryant and the Lakers came out on top, 120-118.

  After the game, everyone wanted to talk about Kobe Bryant. “Kobe smelled it at the end of the game,” said Coach Jackson, “and he lifted us.”

  “That was big-time tonight,” added Glen Rice. “He stepped up like a veteran. That just goes to show how much he’s matured.” A reporter then asked Shaq what Bryant had said when he had approached him after he’d fouled out in overtime. The big center smiled. “He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, I got it.’” That he certainly did. “That’s what a one-two punch can do for you,” he added. “When you injure your left hand, the right will step up and knock out the opponent.”

  Bryant even impressed Pacer coach Larry Bird, who had been one of the greatest clutch players in NBA history during his career with the Boston Celtics. “It was awesome,” said Bird of Bryant’s performance. “Every shot was all net,” he said of Bryant’s 28 points on 14 of 27 shooting from the field. “We knew Kobe was going to take over. It’s just that we couldn’t stop him.”

  Down three games to one, the Pacers didn’t fold, winning game five in a rout, 120-87. But in game six, the Lakers wouldn’t be denied.

  Behind O’Neal and Bryant, they won, 116-111, to capture the NBA championship.

  Bryant scored 26 points in the finale, including four critical free throws in the final 13 seconds. At the final buzzer, he and O’Neal embraced. The victory answered forever the question of whether the two stars could learn to play together.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  2000-2002

  “Back to Back to Back”

  Kobe Bryant had proven himself a clutch player during the 2000 NBA Championships. When Shaq was troubled with injuries at the start of the 2000-2001 season, Kobe stepped up his play again. In November, he chalked up five consecutive games of thirty or more points. He earned Player of the Month honors in December thanks to his averages of 32.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.9 assists. A month later he had his first triple-double with 26 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists; he added another later in the season, as well as eight double-doubles.

  Overall, the Lakers were having another good run, too. Shaq recovered and returned to the line up, and while there were times that he and Kobe disagreed, for the most part they were in sync—and that partnership helped the team to their second consecutive Playoffs. Los Angeles quickly dispatched the first three teams they faced, sweeping first Portland, thenSacramento, and finally San Antonio, to reach the finals against the Philadelphia 76ers.

  The Lakers were hungry to repeat their previous year’s victory, but they were dealt a blow in the first game when they lost to the Sixers, 107-101, in overtime. But that loss only served to whet their appetites. They took the next four games away from Philadelphia to win their second title in two years.

  “We did it again!” Bryant cried after the fourth victory sealed their championship. Then he added, “We’re going to get another one next year. Back to back to back!”

  But the possibility of a three-peat was by no means certain for the 2001-2002 Lakers. While they started the season off strong by winning 16 of their first 17 contests, midway through the schedule they had dropped to second place behind the Sacramento Kings. The two teams raced neck-and-neck throughout the remainder of the season and then met for a final showdown in the semifinals of the playoffs.

  The Lakers took the first game, 106 to 99; Kobe accounted for 30 of LA’s points that night. The Kings fought back to win the next two, however, and then the teams traded
victories—unbelievably close matches won by a single point each—to put the series at Kings 3, Lakers 2. If Sacramento won the next match, they would be going to the finals. The Lakers, on the other hand, needed two wins to advance.

  They got them. In game 6, Shaq and Kobe combined for a total of 72 points to push their team ahead and tie the series. In game 7, the Lakers powered past the Kings in an edge-of-the-seat overtime that ended with Bryant draining two from the line to make the final score a decisive 112 to 106.

  The Championship Series wasn’t quite as exciting as the semifinals. But if you were a Laker or a Laker fan, it was plenty satisfying. Los Angeles faced the New Jersey Nets in four times and beat them in each meeting. O’Neal was the star of the series and earned the MVP Award, but Bryant did his part by averaging 26.8 points per game and 5.3 assists. His best performance came in the final minutes of Game 3, when he hit two vital jump shots to preserve his team’s four-point lead.

  Los Angeles celebrated their home team’s three-peat with a victory parade. At the parade’s end, Kobe took a turn at the podium in front of Staples Center. “I told you all last year we’re going back to back to back,” he said, his happy voice echoing as confetti flew through the air and cheers rose from the crowd of 150,000 fans. “We’ll be back next year. See you next year!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  2002-2005

  10,000 and Beyond

  Anticipation for yet another stellar season was high in the wake of the Lakers’ three-peat. But unfortunately, some of the team’s top players, including Shaq, were sidelined early with injuries and penalties. Indeed, if not for Kobe Bryant, the Lakers might have faded into the background in the fall of 2002.

  But Bryant wasn’t about to let that happen. Now entering his seventh season with the NBA, he was one of the most dominating players on the court, and this year his deadly accuracy from the floor became even more threatening. In one game, he nailed 12 three-point shots, a new NBA high mark. He also posted a record-tying eight three-pointers in a single half; had a nine-game streak of 40 or more points, tying Michael Jordan’s record; and a 13-game streak of 35 or more points, making him only the fourth person to achieve that benchmark. But the highlight of his season came on March 5, 2003.

  That night, the Lakers were playing the Pacers in Indiana. In the third quarter, Bryant got the ball and sailed into the air for a hanging jump shot. The ball slipped into the net for two points. On the surface, it wasn’t a remarkable play—nothing more than what he had done hundreds of times before.

  But in fact, when that ball dropped through the hoop, Kobe Bryant made history. Those two points brought his career total to 10,000, making him the youngest player in NBA history to reach that milestone.

  Moments later, the crowd learned what he had done. They erupted with cheers and gave him a standing ovation.

  “I really can’t grasp what it means right now,” Bryant said later. “I had no idea the crowd was going to stand up the way they did. It was a little embarrassing, but it was a good feeling.”

  Bryant continued to feel good and, along with Shaq and the other Lakers, to play great for the rest of the season. Los Angeles ended with a 50-32 record, good enough to put them in the playoffs for the fourth year in a row. They dispatched their competition there and reached the semifinals, where they faced the San Antonio Spurs. After four games, the series was tied at two apiece.

  Game five was a hard-fought battle that found the Lakers down by three in the final seconds. Unbelievably, they nearly sent the game into overtime when Robert Horry tossed up a three pointer with 4.3 seconds left on the clock. The ball bounced in, and then inexplicably bounced out of the hoop. The Spurs took that game, and the next as well—and for the first time in the new millennium, the Lakers were out of the Championships.

  The following year, Bryant posted numbers that were slightly lower than the previous years. Still, his stats were outstanding; with a per-game average of 24 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.1 assists, he was among the top players in the league. Following his sixth straight appearance at the All-Star Game, he added his ninth career triple-double, with 25 points, 14 rebounds, and 10 assists, in a game against the Washington Wizards.

  Los Angeles roared into the playoffs again in 2004 by winning 14 of their last 17 games. They then charged past the Houston Rockets, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Minnesota Timberwolves to face the Detroit Pistons in the finals. Once there, however, they seemed to run out of steam. The Pistons outplayed and outshot the Lakers four out of the five contests. In game three, they embarrassed the LA team by beating them by a 20 point margin!

  In years past, such a loss would have been unthinkable. But that loss wasn’t the only one the Lakers would suffer. In the following season, they took to the courts with a big hole in their roster. After eight amazing seasons, Shaquille O’Neal had been traded to the Miami Heat. Rumors swirled that the change had come at his request, made after Phil Jackson announced his decision not to return as the Lakers’ coach in the fall of 2004. Others claimed Shaq was tired of competing with Kobe. Still others said Kobe pushed Shaq out, a rumor that gained momentum when his new seven-year, $136.4 million contract was announced.

  In the end, however, the reasons didn’t matter so much as the result—Shaq was gone. Competitors even when they were teammates, Kobe and Shaq would now be in true competition whenever they met on the court.

  Fans looked forward to that first meeting, slated for Christmas Day, with great eagerness. The media hyped the event for weeks; when the Heat and theLakers took to the court, it was before a record-setting audience.

  By all accounts, the Kobe-Shaq duel lived up to its hype. Shaq and the Heat won the game in overtime, with Shaq posting a double-double with 24 points and 11 rebounds. But Shaq also fouled out, his last two penalties given when he tried to block Kobe’s drives to the hoop. Kobe, meanwhile, drained in a game-high 42 points and nearly won the game for the Lakers with a close-but-no-cigar three pointer at the overtime buzzer.

  “I had a pretty good look,” Bryant said of that last shot, “but I didn’t get the balance I would have liked.”

  In the weeks following that ballyhooed match, Kobe and the Lakers often found themselves off-balance. On January 13, Bryant suffered a severe sprain to his right ankle, an injury that sidelined him for a month. Then, midway through his recovery, head coach Rudy Tomjanovich announced that he was stepping down for health reasons. Assistant coach Frank Hamblen worked his team as best he could, but in the end, his leadership couldn’t overcome the problems the Lakers were having. The season ended with LA missing a berth in the playoffs for the first time since 1994.

  Kobe Bryant was disappointed with the results but had one high point to look back on. In the season’s final game, he chalked up his 14,000th point, surpassing Michael Jordan as the youngest player to reach that benchmark. Still, he would have traded that milestone for a chance to win another Championship ring.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  2005-2006

  81 and “The Shot”

  Kobe Bryant worked out throughout the off season to improve his speed and agility. When he returned to the court at the start of the 2005-2006 season, it was obvious to everyone that his efforts had paid off. He scored 20 or more points in six of the eight preseason games, and then exploded in the first regular season games, posting nine games with 30 or more points, including two with more than 40! And on December 20, he was nearly unstoppable as he made shot after shot for 62 points, his best ever game.

  But even Kobe couldn’t have anticipated what would happen on January 22, 2006. That night, the Lakers faced the Toronto Raptors in Los Angeles. Two minutes into the game, Bryant made a reverse layup for two points. Thirty seconds later, he added two more on a fadeaway. He didn’t score again for four minutes, but by the end of the first period he had earned 14 points, four of which came from free throws. Good numbers, but not unusual for him and not enough to help the Lakers overcome the Raptor’s seven-point lead.

 
By halftime, he had a total of 26 points and seemed on his way to yet another 40-or-more point game. Then came the second half.

  After missing two jump shots in the opening minutes, Bryant hit eight in a row, including three three pointers! He added another point with a free throw to bring his game total to 44—and then proceeded to sink virtually ever shot in the remainder of the game. When the dust finally settled, Bryant had made a grand total of 81 points!

  “Not even in my dreams,” Kobe said of his amazing achievement. “This was something that just happened. It is tough to explain. It is just one of those things.”

  That total of 81 points included 7 three pointers and was second only to the individual all-time high score of 100, made by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962. Not surprisingly, the Lakers took the game, 122 to 104.

  They took enough additional games in the remainder of the season to push them into the playoffs, too. Kobe had several more 40-plus point games and two 50-plus games during the final months.

  Then came the first round of the playoffs, against the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers dropped the opening game, 107 to 102, then took the next three to go ahead three games to one. The most remarkable play during those games came from Kobe Bryant in the final seconds of the third game.

  The Lakers were behind by two points. With the shot clock at 0.4, teammate Smush Parker got the ball. He passed it to Bryant. With seven-tenths of a second left, Bryant drove to the hoop and laid the ball up.

  Swish!

  The ball dropped, the buzzer sounded, and the game was tied! Overtime!