Defense Against Bryant Working, Whatever It Is

Kobe Bryant has taken only 18 shots the first two games of the Western Conference finals after averaging 15 in three regular-season meetings, but the Trail Blazers say they are not doing anything different in the playoffs and won’t when the series resumes tonight at the Rose Garden.

“We played him the same way all year long for the most part,” Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “Obviously, we know in the playoffs how strong he and Shaq [O’Neal] have been. Our emphasis has been to try and keep those guys down as best we could, pay a lot of attention to them and make them have to work as hard as we can make them work, as we do the other great players we face in this league.”

Not only has Bryant gotten far fewer attempts than normal, he has made only 33.3% of them (six of 18). And four of those six came in Game 1, when he was at least effective passing, finishing with six assists and one turnover in the Laker victory. In Game 2, he was two of nine from the field and had four assists and two turnovers.

This came after Bryant averaged 24.3 points against Portland in the regular season, almost four more than any other Laker, and shot 55.6%. The Trail Blazers have suddenly found the answer to that problem even if they can’t answer the bigger question:

What has changed?

“I don’t know,” guard Steve Smith said. “I can’t answer that. We just hope he keeps it the way he’s been doing it. I think the thing is, we got to him a little better than we did in the first game.”

For Game 3, the Trail Blazers have readied for the contingency that the Lakers will go away from the triangle offense to get Bryant the ball more on the wings, with room to create off the dribble.

“They might,” Dunleavy said. “They can do whatever they want to do. I know in the past they’ve done it also with Michael [Jordan]. They’ve gone away from the triangle offense in a sense. But it takes away from their philosophy. It has four guys standing around maybe and focusing on one guy, and sometimes that helps you too.”

Said Bonzi Wells, another of the Portland guards: “I know he wants to get his rhythm. Kobe’s a great player. We’ve got guys that we can throw at him and try to stop him. The first couple games really weren’t his games. But we’ve got five more hopefully, to the point where he can really go off on us, so we’ve got to continue to be humble.”

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Center Arvydas Sabonis followed up the zero points and one rebound in 33 minutes of Game 1 with five points and five rebounds in 16 minutes of Game 2 before fouling out. O’Neal has had 64 points and 23 rebounds in the two games.

“For me, it is difficult to tire him out,” Sabonis said. “I am a slow player. But another guy who is quicker, maybe they can make him a little bit tired.”