Bryant Glides to the Rescue

In the desperate hours, under fire and looking weaker and bleaker than they have ever before, the Lakers summoned their basest, rawest survival skills.

And they basically just turned to Kobe Bryant and said: Lead us out of this.

Bryant did not walk on water, but he seemed to be levitating above the shoulders of defenders, over their heads, and tipped in the missed free throw as the regulation buzzer sounded to send this game, incredibly, into overtime.

The Lakers’ 106-102 victory was a revelation, after 36 minutes of revulsion.

And, with some guy named Michael Jordan on hand as part of the largest crowd in New Arena history--20,108--how do you evaluate that?

Shaquille O’Neal had been long ago ejected, so in the panicky fourth quarter, it was left to a crackling, soaring Bryant, a relentless Robert Horry, Glen Rice and others to turn a fiasco into a fight, to at least go out with beating hearts and pumping fists.

They did.

The Lakers, on a pure momentum high, ran off to a 104-99 lead in overtime, fueled by Bryant’s put-back slam and Horry’s steal and layup.

Then Travis Knight blocked John Starks’ last-ditch try with 1.2 seconds left, which could have tied it. As Horry made two free throws, Bryant gestured toward a heckler, pointed to his chest, and raised his arms in triumph.

“Kobe lives for games like that,” Laker Coach Kurt Rambis said. “He just absolutely lives for it. That’s what he dreams of, he thinks of it all the time.”

Bryant finished with 27 points--25 in the second half and overtime.

“It was unbelievable,” Rambis said. “They showed great heart, great character, team confidence. That was some great stuff, huh?”

After a 2-0 start, the Lakers never led until the first basket of overtime.

They hadn’t even tied it until Bryant’s magic carpet ride, flipping in Rice’s intentional miss at the end of regulation.

What happened here?

Was it bad? Because it was their worst sustained basketball of the season, until the comeback?

Or not so bad and almost good? Because the fourth quarter was as lively and together as the Lakers have played in about a month, because, without their giant in the middle, they clawed and clambered with ferocity?

Or great? Because maybe you will close your eyes 20 years from now and remember Bryant’s second half and overtime and say: That was something nobody else could’ve done, except maybe the guy who recently retired.

So much bad happened early, it took some incredible late Laker play to even make it close.

The last surge came when Bryant rose up to block a sure-thing Starks layup, Horry fed Rice, who banged in a three-pointer on the fly, and (gasp!) the Lakers trailed by only two, 86-84, with 1:29 left.

This after trailing by as much as 28 in the second quarter, and by nothing less than 15 for almost all of the game.

And the Warriors called time out, to talk it over and rid themselves of a severe case of vertigo.

To that point, the Lakers had outscored the Warriors, 31-13, in the quarter.

Then Starks flattened the Lakers at last--firing in an off-balance three-pointer with 49.4 seconds left, finally lifting Golden State to a lead the Lakers could not overcome.

Wrong.

It seemed as if it would end in anticlimax: The Lakers appeared disoriented while the Warriors dribbled out most of the final 33 seconds, declining to stop the clock by fouling and watching the game drain away.

Bryant made another wild three-pointer with 3.7 seconds left.

After Bimbo Coles made two free throws, the Warriors were up by three, 91-88, with 3.7 seconds left. Rice was fouled, made his first.

Then Bryant went airborne.

Trailing by more than 16 for most of the game, the Lakers (27-16) peeped their heads back into a competitive situation early in the fourth by outscoring the Warriors, 7-2, and closing the gap to 75-60 with 10:32 left.

Bryant swished a three-pointer with 7:52 left in the fourth, suddenly narrowing the Laker deficit to 12 points, 77-65, the closest the game had been since it was 14-2 four minutes in.

They scored a season-low (for any quarter) 10 points in the first, after missing their first seven shots.

At the end of one, it was Warriors 32, Lakers 10.

By the second quarter, the Warriors had control, taking a lead as large as 28 points midway through the period, as the Lakers consistently kicked the ball away (an incredible 17 first-half turnovers, five by Bryant) and let Golden State players stream to the basket.

It tells you something that the Lakers’ high point was not really high and didn’t score any points--it was O’Neal’s sudden shove of Coles in the second quarter, which brought about his second technical foul, his ejection and a brief rally by the Lakers.