Most Wins To Must-Win

Kobe Bryant has been the most consistent performer for the Lakers in these playoffs.

He has emerged as the team’s leading scorer, averaging 30.5 points against the Sacramento Kings.

He has played with passion, through the end, at times looking like a man still bailing out water even after the bow of the ship has plunged beneath the waves.

And yet . . .

It hasn’t been enough.

Even though Bryant continues to elevate his game, he hasn’t reached the point where he can single-handedly will his team to victory.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. It might remind him that he can’t do everything on his own.

But right now it serves as a glaring warning to the Lakers that they’ll go only as far as Shaquille O’Neal takes them.

Maybe the hype-masters got it wrong. What if Bryant doesn’t project as the next Michael Jordan but as the next Scottie Pippen?

Not too much wrong with being the best sidekick in NBA history. Pippen rode shotgun all the way to six championships and a place among the NBA’s all-time 50 greatest players.

Bryant isn’t ready to carry the Lakers for an extended stretch--not the way that O’Neal can. That was evident by the way the team struggled when O’Neal sat out because of a sprained ankle at the end of the regular season.

After four great playoff games, all the Lakers have to show for Bryant’s efforts is a 2-2 tie and a nerve-rattling Game 5 showdown with the Kings. And what does it say for the Lakers when their most consistent player among the regular rotation is the one with the least playoff experience?

Bryant’s ability to bring the required effort to postseason games comes down to this: “Just playing.”

“It’s playoff time,” he said. “It’s playoff basketball. Stakes are high. I can respond to that. That’s an easy challenge.”

The first time Bryant entered the playoffs as an all-star-credentialed player, in 1998, his scoring dropped noticeably. He went from 15.4 points per game in the regular season to 8.7 in the postseason.

Last year his point production stayed the same, at just under 20 per game, but his shooting dipped from 47% to 43%.

This time around he is shooting 51% and is scoring eight points above his average.

“He’s had some great games and played well,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “I thought he took on a little bit more than he should take on at the end of [Game 3, when he scored nine points in 90 seconds], but he felt the team and the game sliding. He played angrier . . . a little bit belligerent, perhaps. We got in a situation where we rode his coattails for a couple of minutes there.”

Bryant needs a new jacket, because the Lakers were hanging on again in the fourth quarter of Game 4, when he scored 12 points.

There were times when he had to be the offense, because the Lakers ran the triangle only 20% of the time, in Jackson’s estimation.

“We had too many non-potent opportunities,” Jackson said. “We had some non-direct offensive things going on.

“Kobe took the bull by the horns, so to speak, in a lot of the game. [He had] good energy and played with the kind of intensity that we have to have to play. He didn’t get enough guys playing with him at that level.”

Part of that is Bryant’s responsibility.

Jackson, never satisfied, said now that Bryant has demonstrated an ability to work with O’Neal, he must find a way to integrate Glen Rice into the offense.

“Glen is a guy, if we get him 15 shots, he can get 20 points, if [the shots are] generated by Kobe and if they’re open,” Jackson said.

Bryant’s 23 points in Game 1 were overshadowed by O’Neal’s 46. When the Kings collapsed on O’Neal in Game 2, Bryant cut loose for 32 points, making shots from everywhere--even the “L” on the Lakers’ logo at half court.

He followed that with 35 in Game 3 and 32 in Game 4.

But he also had a rally-killing seven turnovers Tuesday night. The last one came with less than two minutes remaining and the Lakers down by nine. Bryant went into the heart of the King defense, jumped in the air, got caught and threw the ball back toward half court, where Sacramento’s Predrag Stojakovic was waiting and there wasn’t a Laker in sight.

Bryant needs to get back to that state he described between Games 3 and 4, an ability to slow down, assess the situation and know when to strike.

“Physically, you take a step back the first couple of games, but you step up mentally,” he said. “Then the third, fourth, fifth game--whatever it is--you combine both and you turn them both up.”

The Lakers need more than just that combination for Game 5. As much as Bryant’s play has improved, they need him to take that next step from playing great in defeat to leading a team to victory.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com