On the Court With... Kobe Bryant (14 page)

By the end of November, the Lakers had a record of 9-7. It was not their best showing in years, but it was respectable nonetheless.
By the year’s end, they had bettered it to 19-11. Those wins included a December 23 match that saw Kobe Bryant earning an
early Christmas present.

That night, the Los Angeles Lakers played the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden. The Lakers jumped to an early lead,
and by halftime were ahead 55-37. Kobe had drained 17 of those points, including two three-pointers. Then, in the first minute
of the third quarter, he hit another three-pointer.

All of a sudden, the crowd erupted with cheers. With that shot, Bryant had made his 20,000th career point! He was the thirty-first
player to reach that mark and the youngest in NBA history. The Lakers won the game, thanks in large part to Kobe’s 39 points,
11 rebounds, and 8 assists.

Less than a month later, Kobe closed in on another historic record in a thrilling game against the Seattle SuperSonics that
was decided in the final four seconds of overtime. The score was tied at 121 points apiece when Bryant got the ball 18 feet
from the basket. He
turned, shot, and
swish!
Two points and the win!

Those points brought his game total to 48, his first 40-plus game of the season—and the 87th of his career. If he had just
one more game with more than 40 points, he would tie Elgin Baylor, who had 88, for third place in the NBA record books. Few
people doubted he would tie and eventually surpass Baylor, and soon. And that’s exactly what happened.

On January 25, 2008, he reached 88. On February 1, he made it 89. Nineteen days later, he was up to 90—despite pain in his
right pinky, which he had dislocated earlier in the month. On March 2, he posted his 91st 40-plus game with a 52-point effort,
his highest point total so far that season. And before March was through, he bested
that
mark by draining 53 points for his 92nd 40-plus game—and his 23rd 50-plus career game!

Such performances had some people whispering that this year, Kobe Bryant would finally win an award that had eluded him so
far in his career. Despite posting fantastic numbers in most of his eleven seasons, Bryant had never been voted as the NBA’s
Most Valuable Player.

No one disputed the fact that Kobe was a great player, perhaps the best on the court. The trouble was,
many were uncertain if he was the best
team
player. For those voting for MVP, this is what the award represented.

That Kobe himself recognized this fact became clear in a reply he gave in mid-April when asked if he thought he had a chance
to win.

“The MVP nowadays is not an individual award, you really have to make your teammates better and elevate your ball club. I
think for me to be nominated in that race is a tremendous honor because that’s really been one of the criticisms people have
had of me, how well I make my teammates better. From that standpoint, I feel like I have already won.”

But were his efforts enough for him to win MVP votes? Only time would tell. Meanwhile, he still had a job to do—namely, help
the Lakers win their way through the playoffs and into the Finals!

On April 11, the Lakers clinched first place in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference with a nail-biting 107-104
win over the dangerous New Orleans Hornets. Two nights later they beat the reigning NBA champions, the San Antonio Spurs,
by a walloping 106-85 to jump ahead to first place in the Western Conference.

“It’s all about momentum,” Kobe commented.

That momentum carried the Lakers through their last regular season game, a 124-101 blowout over the Sacramento Kings. Kobe
had 20 points that night, most of which were free throws. He also had 5 assists. The second of these marked yet another important
milestone in his career.

Bryant entered the game with 3,998 total career assists in eleven seasons. Within the first minutes of the first quarter,
he had added number 3,999. Then, with 7:22 showing on the game clock, he dished the ball to teammate Vladimir Radmanovic,
who drove in for a layup. Radmanovic added two points to the Lakers’ score—and Kobe became the sixteenth player in NBA history
to have 4,000 career assists, only the third Laker to reach that mark.

Kobe was pleased to have earned his way into the top ranks of basketball players. But there were still two goals that eluded
him, the MVP award and a fourth NBA championship title.

That the Lakers could achieve the second of the two was possible, for Los Angeles swept the Denver Nuggets in the first round
of the playoffs to advance to the Conference Semifinals versus the Utah Jazz. Kobe played one of the best games of his life
in that
first round. He hit 18 of 27 shots from the floor, made 5 out of 9 three-pointers, and added 8 more points on free throws
for a total of 49 that night. He also contributed 10 assists; in all, his performance accounted for 69 points of the team’s
total score!

It was efforts like that that made it easy for sports writers and broadcasters to decide on the 2007-2008 MVP. On May 6, they
chose Bryant in a landslide that saw him garnering 82 out of 126 first-place votes.

Kobe was thrilled to finally receive the award that had danced just out of reach for so long. But he didn’t claim the trophy
for himself alone. He knew that he wouldn’t be holding it if it wasn’t for his teammates.

“This is really a brotherhood. We’re really, really close, all of us,” he stated on his Web site. “We’re brothers, man.”

Now all that remained to be seen was whether that brotherhood could power their way through the playoffs and win the ultimate
prize: the NBA Championship.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2008

The Los Angeles Lakers had disposed of the Denver Nuggets in four straight games. The Utah Jazz didn’t fold as easily. After
the Lakers won the first two games, the Jazz fought back to tie the series at two apiece.

Game Five was played in Los Angeles before a screaming, celebrity-filled crowd, a crowd whose loyalty to the boys in purple
and gold was rewarded with a win. The Lakers needed just one more victory to advance to the Conference Finals. They got it
the next game, thanks in large part to Kobe Bryant, who helped crush a Utah rally by draining 12 points in the last quarter.

“We want to keep it rolling,” Bryant said of his team’s momentum. “It’s a great accomplishment to get to the Conference Finals,
but we believe we can accomplish much more.”

So far, the Lakers were 8-2 in the playoffs. Two games later, against their Conference opponents, the San Antonio Spurs, their
postseason record was 10-2.
Those wins hadn’t come easily, however. The first, in fact, nearly went to the Spurs, who had a 20-point lead midway through
the third quarter.

Up until then, Kobe had taken just three shots, only one of which had made it through the hoop. Considering that he hadn’t
scored less than 22 points in the previous ten outings, some wondered if his hot hand had cooled off.

It hadn’t. Four minutes into the third quarter, he hit a jump shot. Two and a half minutes later, he hit another, and followed
that with an assist to teammate Pau Gasol—his sixth assist of the night. After that came a three-pointer and two free throws,
then two more assists to Gasol. He finished the quarter with yet another bucket and one more assist to bring his point total
to 13, with 9 assists.

The final quarter started with the Spurs ahead, 72 to 65. One minute later, it was 72-67 thanks to Kobe’s driving layup. The
Spurs got two free throws to widen the gap again, only to see it close on a jump shot from Bryant. It got tighter just minutes
later, when number 24 made back-to-back buckets to bring Los Angeles to within three points of tying the game. Would they
have enough muscle to draw even in the time they had left?

They would! With 3:18 showing on the clock, Lamar Odom rolled in a layup off ofhis fingertips to tie it up at 81 apiece. Seconds
later, Bryant was fouled. He hit both free throws to give the Lakers their first lead of the game, and then sweetened the
deal with a jump shot.

The Spurs weren’t about to sit back and let LA roll over them, however. Manu Ginobili sank two free throws. Then Tim Duncan
tossed in a jumper to tie it at 85 to, 85.

As the clock ticked down, an overtime decision seemed inevitable to many. Many, but not all. Not Kobe Bryant! With less than
thirty seconds remaining, he brought the ball to the lane, drew up, and lofted a ten-foot jumper that arced over the Spurs’
outstretched fingers and into the hoop. The Lakers had a two-point lead and when Vujacic hit two free throws moments later,
that lead stretched to four. From a one-time 20-point deficit, the Lakers had surged to take the game, 89-85.

The following game wasn’t nearly as exciting, but it was rewarding—for Laker fans, anyway, who saw their team win by a margin
of 30 points, 101 to 71. Los Angeles was now just two victories from the NBA Finals.

The next game didn’t see them advance any closer,
however, for they lost to San Antonio. But that loss was just a temporary setback. They took Game Four, holding off a last
quarter recovery by the Spurs to squeak out a 93-91 win. They won Game Five, too, a victory that saw Kobe scoring 17 of his
39 points in the fourth quarter.

“We’re all extremely excited,” Bryant said after the win that pushed them into the Finals. “Now, it’s time to go on and see
if we can’t finish it off.”

“Finishing it off wouldn’t be a simple task. To win the NBA Championship, the Lakers would have to beat the strongest team
in the league, the Boston Celtics.

After dwelling in or near the cellar of the league for several years, the Celtics had staged an amazing comeback season. At
the head of the charge was a group of players known collectively as The Big Three: forwards Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett
and guard Ray Allen. Guard Rajon Rondo and center Kendrick Perkins rounded off the starting lineup.

Boston was coming off a tough postseason that found them playing all seven games in their first two series, and six out of
seven in the third. They eventually beat the Atlanta Hawks, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Detroit Pistons, but it hadn’t
been as easy as they—or
their fans —had hoped.

But they had done it and in doing so had returned to the Finals for the first time since 1986. If they won this year, it would
be their seventeenth championship title. Nine of their sixteen previous Finals had been against one team: the Los Angeles
Lakers. The Celtics had won eight of those matches only to see their streak end in 1985, when LA finally beat them. Now, the
media was in a frenzy over the 2008 Lakers—Celtics Finals, a matchup they hyped as the greatest rivalry in basketball.

Game One was played in Boston on June 5. The Celtics had been virtually unstoppable on their home court. Kobe Bryant knew
that if his team was going to win there, he would have to step up his game another notch.

Instead, the Celtics’ powerful defense took him down a notch. He managed to drain 24 points all the same, but at the same
time, he missed some that he usually made. Boston won, 98 to 88.

A Celtics victory looked certain the next game, too. With only eight minutes left in the third quarter, the Lakers were down
by 24 points. But Los Angeles hadn’t reached the Finals by giving up. Slowly but surely, they crept up on Boston’s lead until
amazingly,
they were within two points of a tie.

To no one’s surprise, it was Kobe who led the charge. At the top of the fourth quarter, the score was Boston 83, LA 61. Within
the first minute, Bryant ripped down a defensive rebound and dished it to teammate Jordan Farmer, who tossed in a three-pointer.
Kobe assisted on the next four points, too, made by Ronny Turiaf.

Then he tried his hand at shooting. A 19-foot jump shot failed to fall, but the 18-footer he attempted next swished the strings
on its way through the hoop. He put in two free throws, too, after standing his ground and drawing the offensive foul.

The clock was winding down, which meant it was time for another assist, this time to Vladimir Rodmanovic, who stuck a three-pointer.
Kobe now had had a hand in 14 of the last 16 points made by the Lakers!