Lakers Can Keep Spurs On

He has been preaching the same thing to us since he was a child, which was, when, last year?

Relax and enjoy the ride, Kobe Bryant has said, again and again, through oohs and aahs and bricks and clanks.

For some of us, the words have bounced away like one of his silly passes. We didn’t listen. We own sweat socks older than him, why should we listen?

Then Saturday, with Glen Rice suddenly out of the Laker lineup, with the ball suddenly in a giggling Bryant’s hand and perhaps the season on the line, we had no choice.

A couple of knee-slapping hours later, we must admit.

The kid is right.

The ride can be a blast.

On Saturday against the Houston Rockets, it took us swerving around picks, streaking down baselines, slicing through three exhausted defenders, soaring above two confused ones.

There were leaping blocks, lunging steals, sprinting, skipping and, yes, even a royally wagging tongue.

Kobe Bryant was the catalyst of the Lakers’ 98-88 Game 4 victory over the Rockets that clinched their first-round playoff series.

He was also one of the reasons they nearly blew it.

But in the end, as he has promised, his good weighed about 400 pounds more than his bad.

And something became obvious that once seemed impossible.

While the Lakers might not yet be ready to win this season’s NBA championship with the kid, they absolutely cannot win it without him.

Next stop, second round, San Antonio, Monday night, more than enough rest time for a 20-year-old who played all but one minute of the team’s most important game of the year.

So, you want to try to win one of two in the Alamodome and take away the Spurs’ home-court advantage?

“Why stop at one?” a laughing Bryant said after scoring 24 points with a team-leading eight assists and three steals and, oh yes, six rebounds and two blocked shots. “Why not try to win both of them in San Antonio. Why not set your sights higher?”

OK, so, uh, with the team playing as it did Saturday, do you actually think you can win a title? Maybe even this year?

“We can go as far as we want to go,” Bryant said. “Next year? Why wait for next year? There’s a first time for everything, why not do it now? Why not defy the odds?”

Watch out, Spurs.

After a difficult spring that included a spat with the team’s best player and criticism from his beloved vice president, Kobe is having fun again.

He is smiling all the time again. He is throwing out his chest again.

He is bringing the kind of energy that convinced the aging Rockets to disappear, while reminding his teammates why they show up.

It’s not always pretty, but at least now, it’s done smartly, and it works.

“Maybe I’m shutting people up, huh?” he said, not meanly, but with another impossible-to-dislike chuckle.

This series is certainly a start.

After struggling with illness and ineffectiveness during playoff crunch time last year, he is beginning this postseason as an entirely different person, showing an entirely different force.

He won Game 1 against the Rockets at the end, sinking two free throws with 5.3 seconds remaining.

Then he arguably won Saturday’s Game 4 in the beginning. He scored 15 consecutive points from late in the first quarter to early in the second quarter.

When he was finished, the Lakers had a four-point lead they never lost.

But this being the new Kobe, he really wasn’t finished.

Then he went to work playing defense, combining with Rick Fox and Robert Horry to hold Scottie Pippen to six-of-23 shooting with five turnovers.

When he wasn’t hounding Pippen, he was holding Michael Dickerson to six points.

And when he wasn’t doing that, he was feeding everyone from Horry to Derek Harper to, of course, Shaquille O’Neal.

“All those stories about me and Shaq, you can throw all of those in the garbage,” Kobe said. “I mean, just look at us. We play great together.”

Now, those stories about him shooting too much, well, those can still stay.

While he made nine shots, he missed 16. This includes missing seven consecutive shots at the end of the first half and the beginning of the third quarter to allow the Rockets to creep within three.

But how did that streak end? With his turnaround jumper over Dickerson that gave the Lakers a five-point lead and stopped the bleeding.

He has seemingly become mature enough to understand the importance of doing the little things . . . while remaining young enough to know that nothing works as well as the big things.

Such as, knowing when it’s time to lead.

“I felt challenged,” he said, referring to his Game 3 burning by Pippen and this Game 4 surprise injury to Rice. “Any time I feel challenged, I want to step up to it.”

Without Rice around as third option, he might have especially liked the challenge of all that extra free space out there. Not that he ever admitted it.

“This was just fun, this was basketball at its best,” Kobe said. “Going out there, being aggressive, running picks, it was great.”

At least one notable teammate noticed.

“Kobe is a competitor, and he showed that today,” Shaq said.

There are many possible descriptions for Kobe Bryant, but long after Saturday’s win, still shaking his head, Derek Harper came up with perhaps the best one.

“Kobe is Kobe,” he said.

Which, more and more, does not seem like such a frustrating thing after all.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.