Idol Time

First he was breaking up the Lakers and now he’s the new Michael Jordan, which can only mean Kobe Bryant is healthy, playing his game and laying waste to playoff defenses in the Western Conference.

Bryant has to know this is his fault. If he’s going to look like Jordan and sound like Jordan and bring down thunderous dunks on the various heads of the playoffs like Jordan, people are bound to make the leap, no matter how silly, by themselves.

And, if Bryant really would prefer to stay out of the whole Jordan thing, it didn’t help when Shaquille O’Neal, whom he only rarely played well enough to please, suddenly called him the best player in the game. “By far,” Shaq said on Saturday night, loud enough to be heard over the dozens of jaws clattering to the floor.

“That shocked me,” Bryant said.

Overwhelmed by Bryant’s 45 points and selflessness in Game 1, O’Neal called him “my idol,” then offered to name his next child “ShaKobe,” which brought a howl of laughter from Bryant. “Don’t do that to the kid, man,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon, the rest day between Games 1 and 2, Bryant wore a floppy tan hat and a bemused smile to practice at the Alamodome.

He must relate with O’Neal. Then he must relate to Jordan. It’s an interesting workday, to say the least, for Bryant, now 16 victories removed from sure doom, and seven victories from salvaging everything and defending the Lakers’ title. The fractured relationship that threatened everything is mended again, today, and to a nation that can’t wait until November for the real one, Bryant is Jordan-like again, today.

“What doesn’t break you is going to make you stronger, pretty much,” Bryant said. “Not only were we able to come out of so much adversity that we had this season, but we’ve actually come out stronger.

“It was just proving people wrong, and showing ourselves we can do this and we’re going to turn this around and we’re the champions and we have to start acting like champions and playing like champions.”

It took time, and it took wins. Mostly wins. So Bryant can be the best as long as O’Neal gets to be the most dominant, which seems to be where the compromise rests. It was not a handshake arrived at easily, and it remains a daily exercise in ego control, but Laker players and coaches are willing to believe everyone has grown up in the name of the cause.

“For the people in L.A., who have followed this for a long season, that compliment coming out of Shaq speaks volumes for where we’ve taken strides as a team,” Laker forward Rick Fox said. “People ask me, ‘Why are you playing the way you’re playing?’ It’s very evident now that we all have learned to respect each other as players and to enjoy each other’s company and understand how much we can make each other better.”

The Portland Trail Blazers were going to test them, and were swept. The Sacramento Kings were going to push them, and were swept. The San Antonio Spurs were going to be different, much different, and in Game 1 lost, 104-90, only their fifth loss of the season by 10 points or more.

Bryant averaged 32.5 points and 5.4 assists, team highs, in eight playoff games, and damaged the Spurs in Game 1 in places they didn’t know they were vulnerable. Bryant had 10 layups or dunks, two of the dunks over Tim Duncan. Then O’Neal and Bryant found each other’s eyes, and nodded, and slapped hands, O’Neal on his way to 28 points, Bryant to 45, neither seeming to care as much about the numbers as they did the doubt seeping into the Spurs’ psyches.

“I think their friendship, their camaraderie, their teamwork is good,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said of his stars. “I’m still working on having them play ball together, really working their two-man game a lot more in this series, particularly with the need to occupy their great defenders in Duncan and [David] Robinson. Shaq can do that by screening with Kobe.”

Four months ago, the offense wasn’t near big enough for the two of them, Jackson wouldn’t put them in the same room together, and NBA general managers hounded Mitch Kupchak with offers to take either out of Los Angeles. O’Neal and Bryant barely shared a glance, let alone the basketball, and at least one Spur player wondered exactly how far removed they were from it.

“I don’t think the teams they played in the playoffs challenged them,” San Antonio forward Danny Ferry said. “Sacramento didn’t play well--and Portland was in disarray. Winning makes all that stuff go away. But who knows. If we win Monday, then maybe get another win, that stuff might be appearing again. We might see it all come out again. One win changes something and another win would change it a little more. Maybe winning covers up the fact the problems are still there.”

The Spurs get their chance to stay in the series tonight in Game 2, where a loss to the Lakers would be devastating.

“Kobe’s going to score,” San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich said. “Kobe’s going to shoot a lot of shots. Our biggest concern is we didn’t get back in transition very well and he got to the rim a lot. You’re not going to stop him. He’s a 22-year-old hall of famer already. If he’s 22. I’m not sure of that, either.

“He’s progressed. It’s been a process. It didn’t all happen in this playoff game. He’s always been confident in his abilities. I think everybody else is getting comfortable with his abilities too. He’s not just special, but one of the best who’s ever stepped on the court. He’s got that fierceness where he wants to step on your throat.”