OC Register: Without a signature move, Kobe wins a title

Mamba · Jun 14, 2009

His signature.

That’s all this game lacked now.

Just Kobe Bryant’s name written – spectacularly, no less – one final time in this imperfectly perfect season.

So, with the Lakers’ 99-86 victory waning Sunday and the franchise’s 15th NBA title secured, Bryant went hunting for his signature shot.

This was the Lakers’ championship, but this was Bryant’s crown. This was his team – repeat his team – like never before, his greatest triumph about to come free of Shaq’s shackles.

His signature. That’s all that remained.

But Bryant missed a 3-pointer, the darn thing teasing him by rimming out with barely four minutes left. Then he missed another, Bryant unable to make the wildly overmatched J.J. Redick his victim.

On the Lakers’ next possession, the two-minute mark looming, Bryant took Redick off the dribble, pulled up – and banked in a 9-footer.

A bank shot? From nine feet? Hardly fitting, yet completely appropriate. A mundane, old-school bank shot for the final points of his most crowning season yet.

“He’s grown, he’s grown up,” teammate Derek Fisher said. “He’s doing everything that we could ever ask him to do in terms of leading the team … trying to be the type of guy that guys will follow as opposed to just dominating performances by himself.”

The Lakers won this game behind Bryant’s 30 points first, but also behind Lamar Odom’s 17 points and Pau Gasol’s double-double and Trevor Ariza’s 11-point second quarter.

They won as a group, a “family” being the word so many of them used afterward. But there’s no question this march was about one man, and it wasn’t Coach Phil Jackson, who only made NBA history Sunday.

Bryant established something greater than a record. He established himself, no small measure for a player whose career has been played in competition with Michael Jordan, even though Jordan hasn’t scored a basket in years.

It has been just about Bryant from the start, and yet it never has been only about Bryant. There always has been the Jordan comparison. More recently, there have been the Shaquille O’Neal questions. More recently still, Kobe or LeBron?

So Bryant finally was alone Sunday, surrounded by family – his basketball one and his real-life one – but he was as singular as the MVP trophy they presented to him following the game.

“It feels like I’m dreaming right now,” he said. “I can’t believe this moment is here.”

For years, Bryant mostly dodged the questions about the significance of winning without O’Neal, dismissing the theory he could validate his career only by claiming another title minus Shaq.

Well, turns out all that was just another pump fake from the master of the move. Bryant, calling the subject “idiotic criticism,” finally admitted that, yeah, that’s what this was all about for him.

“It was like Chinese water torture, just dropping a drop of water on your temple,” he said. “It was just annoying. I would cringe every time. I was just like, ‘It’s a challenge I’m just going to have to accept because there’s no way I’m going to argue it.’ ”

Instead, he had to eliminate it, end the criticism by making it obsolete. There was only one way to do that, and that one way just happened.

“It’s not going anywhere until you do something about it,” Bryant said. “I think we as a team answered the call because they understood the challenge that I had, and we all embraced it.”

In the end, it really was all about the Lakers, just like these guys have been saying all season.

It didn’t matter what Orlando did in this series or this game; things ultimately were in the Lakers’ hands.

So what if Orlando opened Sunday with a 15-6 lead? So what if the Lakers made only three of their first 12 shots or that Bryant re-re-re-re-reinjured one of his fingers in the opening five minutes?

They shook off the sluggish start and Bryant ignored the pain, and they returned to the business of becoming champions.

“I was just locked in, just completely locked in,” said Bryant, whose first smile of this series finally arrived with 40 seconds remaining in Game 5. “I think it’s a matter of understanding the moment. It’s also understanding your team and the lead that they have to follow.”

He and Jackson have been together for four of these now, and their shared road hasn’t always been pleasant. Most famously, Jackson wrote a book in which he suggested that Bryant was uncoachable.

Sunday night, those words seemed like talk from another lifetime.

“He’s learned how to become a leader in a way in which people want to follow him,” Jackson said. “I think that’s really important for him to have learned because he knew that he had to give to get back in return…he’s become a giver.”

And now he has given the Lakers a championship and himself a crown, one that finally fits him and no one else.
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/bryant-one-lakers-2463995-team-sunday

Mamba · Jun 14, 2009

You can tell the man is at peace with himself in terms of basketball and championship. He is now comfortable. He has done it, he's lead his team to victory.

Now, time for #5!

Flow · Jun 14, 2009

Yeah, Kobe is the best leader in the league atm. He has to motivate himself again, go after MJ's six rings.

huevonkiller · Jun 14, 2009

I want 5 now. He deserves it.

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OC Register: Without a signature move, Kobe wins a title

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