Kobe puts stranglehold on Magic in Game 1
Berger: Strange change for Magic
LOS ANGELES -- Kobe Bryant can be difficult to like if you're not a Lakers fan, hovering somewhere on the official insincerity scale near Bill Clinton and Alex Rodriguez.
All true. This is also accurate: There are moments when he steps onto the court, as he did during the Lakers' stunning 100-75 Game 1 win against Orlando, and his off-court multiple personalities are forgotten due to his hypnotic on-court brilliance. Even his silly pregame protestations that he doesn't care about winning a championship without Shaquille O'Neal, a claim that strains the limits of credulity, is forgotten after a night like this.
With his legacy on the line, Bryant made a shocking, devastating opening statement to the Magic. That statement: We're not losing this series. I'm not losing this series. I won't allow it.
Bryant's single-handed beating of the Magic, scoring a Finals career high of 40 points, should be illegal in 20 states. It was one of those prehistoric whippings, practically Pleistocene, and history won't soon forget it.
Bryant was caught several times by cameras baring his teeth after making a basket. He seems more animated now than ever before, maybe even angry, which is a word that sometimes has improper and unfair connotations with athletes but might be entirely applicable now.
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| 'When he gets it going, he's one of the best players of all time,' Lamar Odom says of Kobe Bryant. (Getty Images) |
• Game 1: Lakers 100, Magic 75 | Series: Lakers 1, Magic 0
When Bryant talks like that it makes you want to upchuck. Nevertheless, it's hard to argue with the splendid results.
It's early in this series. Still, what we might be witnessing is the beginning of Bryant's trek from being great to being eternal. If Bryant wins a championship without O'Neal, he'd have to be mentioned at least in the same sentence with Michael Jordan. He'd have to be, no matter how much Bryant haters would rather stab themselves in the eye than admit such things.
"Offensively he was amazing," Lakers teammate Lamar Odom said of Bryant's 40-point, eight-assist night. "Defensively as well. When he gets it going, he's one of the best players of all time, especially with the basketball. There isn't anything he can't do."
Indeed, Bryant haters, this could be a long, long series for you. What Bryant did in this opening game was deliver the kind of body blow that usually cripples most teams, even armored hard bodies like the Magic.
Is this Bryant talk premature Kobulation? Sure, it could be. Titles aren't won in opening games. The Magic can come back. The Magic are kings of comebacks. That's what they do. They're Jason. You shoot them, poison them, hit them with an arrow in the head, and they readjust that hockey mask and rise from the dead just as your back is turned.
What Bryant tried to do was deliver as much damage as possible to Orlando in this opening salvo and set the tone for the series.
"He had the smell," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said, "and he found kind of the angle what he wanted to do out there on the floor and carried that game into the second half, just carried the game his way. I thought we went there a little too often but he said, 'Keep coming back. I'm OK.' So we did."
What Bryant smelled was a wounded animal. Or maybe it was the smell of Orlando panicking.
Bryant had 18 points in the third quarter. One man can't win a series by himself, but Bryant isn't a man. He's some sort of cybernetic organism. The rules don't apply to him.
And he's got that look. You know the look I'm talking about.
That look.
I think Bryant wants to drop 40 a night and win the series in four or five games, thus forcing his way into the all-time great conversation.
The stars are aligning for Bryant. There's no LeBron James in the way and no matter what he says, no matter how many times he tries to deny it, and no matter how many times his apologists insist a post-O'Neal title isn't in Bryant's thoughts, Kobe wants it badly.
He wants to be able to say: Hey, Shaq, tell me something: How does my rear end taste?
If Bryant keeps this up, he'll have an answer for O'Neal fairly quickly.
