<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">To watch Bryant work is to witness an athlete dominate a craft with nary a smile — every possession personal, every miss to be scrutinized later on tape. He steps on the court with a scowl, rarely changes expression except to plead his case to referees, and then concludes games with the same glower, even if his final shot is the winning one. He gave notice during a preseason practice, booting a water bottle across the court when the team couldn't make enough free throws to end a conditioning drill. Since then, he toppled a TV monitor and yelled at Lamar Odom after a last-second loss to Washington in December and, more recently, gave second-year guard Sasha Vujacic a healthy shove on the bench during a home loss to hapless Seattle. Bryant says he sees results. "You see it from Kwame [Brown], Sasha, Lamar, all the guys," Bryant said. "They play with that chip. "Since training camp … I've been pushing them all the time to play that way just by being hard on them, being tough on them…. When you go into a hostile environment when the playoffs come up, you have to be able to respond to optimum pressure situations. In practice, I'll talk a lot. I'll put the pressure on them and try to get them to look within themselves and get confidence in themselves to come through in those situations. "And then when they come through, you've got to pat them on the back. You've got to let them know, and I think they understand how I am. They understand that that's my leadership style. There's a million different ways to be a leader, many different forms of it. This is the way I go about it."</div> Source: http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/n...orts-nba-lakers
