There’s no more debate, really. Not like there was last season when Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant feuded over who was the pre-eminent figure on the two-time NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers. Not that Game 2 of the Western Conference finals Monday night clinched it, but it was O’Neal’s turn with Bryant ill, and O’Neal couldn’t deliver.
This Lakers team is Kobe Bryant’s team. In the fourth quarter of playoff basketball–the time when the greats step forward–no one has been better in these playoffs.
“I turn it up a notch when the fourth quarter comes,” Bryant said. “I read the defenses in the first 3 1/2 quarters. Then you take advantage of what you’ve read.
“I’ve been able to mature in the playoffs every year. I feel I’ve become more confident, more settled. In the fourth quarter you have to suck it up, understand the challenge and have the killer instinct to apply pressure.”
Though weakened by food poisoning, Bryant hit a three-pointer with 12.5 seconds to go that gave the Lakers a chance to steal the game they eventually lost Monday as Sacramento squared the series 1-1. Bryant, who left practice early Wednesday still feeling the effects of the food poisoning, bookended the Game 1 win in Sacramento with a team-high 10 points in the first and fourth quarters.
“Kobe is the toughest player in the league down the stretch,” Kings coach Rick Adelman said. “He’s got that striving in him that you just can’t teach. Everybody knows it, but you can’t do anything about it. He’s as close to Michael [Jordan] as you can get without all of Michael’s experience.”
In the conference semifinals against San Antonio, Bryant was 12-for-18 in the fourth quarters of the last three games and won all three down the stretch. He was particularly spectacular in Game 4, bringing the Lakers from 10 down with consecutive three-pointers and an over-the-head offensive rebound that he converted into a put-back basket over David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
“The guy is unbelievable,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “Though I hate to compare people, he’s real similar to Michael in his makeup. The guy really feeds off situations. He feeds off crowds. He feeds off deficits in the score. He feeds off somebody being on him, somebody trying to guard him.
“Maybe early in his career he might turn it over or take a bad shot. We don’t see that anymore. He’s added wisdom to his ability to step up to whatever challenge might be there.”
Bryant, averaging 26 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists in the playoffs, is just 23, which should scare the Boston Celtics and their record of eight consecutive NBA titles. But there’s one more reason why these Lakers seem to be settling comfortably into becoming Bryant’s team.
O’Neal has been telling friends and hinting to various interviewers that he doesn’t intend to play beyond the 2003-04 season, just two more years. He says his foot problems are getting worse and won’t allow him to play beyond that.
O’Neal clearly has slowed this season and is not jumping as well. That massive body, never in the greatest condition, is wearing down after 10 seasons and O’Neal, 30, feels it.
Although he’s not making any predictions, the signs of a premature departure are there. He has talked about not playing without coach Phil Jackson, which has been dismissed as Shaq jokingly trying to be like Mike. Jackson has two seasons left on his contract and often says he won’t coach into his 60s. He’ll be 59 when his contract ends.
In a recent interview with New Yorker magazine, O’Neal said Dave Bing was his favorite all-time player. He said he admired Bing’s decision to retire relatively young and go into business.
“Basketball is cool, but we can’t do it forever,” O’Neal said.
Those around him have long known of Shaq’s ambivalence toward basketball. He doesn’t hunger for it like Bryant, doesn’t care for the practices and routine. He does like the celebrity it brings him. But when it becomes painful, as it has now and will continue to be as the arthritis in his toe persists, O’Neal pauses. He has talked of his reluctance to use anti-inflammatories because of the kidney problems sustained by Alonzo Mourning.
O’Neal is signed through the 2005-06 season but over the next two seasons he’ll make a combined $50 million in salary. If the Lakers can slip through this season, then win two more titles, that would be five for O’Neal, which would match Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s five as a Lakers center, which has been something of a goal for him.
“I understand the pressure to come back, the season getting longer,” Jackson said. “Eventually Kobe will move into the position where he’ll carry the load for this ballclub, and then we’ll see the full range and scope of what he can do as a player. It will be real interesting to see how they can support him here in L.A. with personnel.”
Everyone is starting to see what Bryant can do. He may be doing it alone sooner than most expected.
