<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">DENVER — Two things you probably thought you never would hear: Kobe Bryant withdrawing from the MVP race. An NBA coach admitting that, even in crunch time, he had his team challenge Bryant to make a shot. Bryant lately continues to take lots of shots — he launched 30 in the Lakers' 115-111 loss to the Nuggets on Monday night at the Pepsi Center, missing 21 of them — but he hasn't been dropping 50-point games for a while. That explains why Nuggets coach George Karl after Monday's enormous victory for his team could acknowledge simply challenging the NBA's leading scorer to make a shot that might have won the game. "I think he missed a lot of shots," said Karl, obviously better at math than some coaches. "We just kind of stayed in front of him and crowded him. If he would start making shots, we did have some double-team actions ready to go on him. But even at the end, I felt like we should just challenge him to make a shot." Karl added, we think facetiously: "Don't tell him I said that." Don't worry, George. We'd never tell. Give Bryant this much: He really has tried to get his teammates more involved in the Lakers' scoring. His teammates, though, aren't doing much with some of the slick passes he is getting to them after drives to the basket. It is hard to know what to make of Lamar Odom, who has all that talent, yet remains an enigma. So Bryant has averaged just less than 27 shots in the Lakers' six games in the April stretch run, almost out of necessity, and has made only 42 percent. That explains why the Lakers have dropped six of their past eight, including one in which Bryant scored 53. It also helps to explain why the Lakers are in danger of dropping out of the playoffs altogether. </div> Source --> MySA
