Kobe Serves Up Four-Star Dish Worth Savoring

It was a sting of beauty, a burst of wonder, a leap-off-the-couch-and-

dance-on-the-peanut-shells moment.

Not the shot, silly.

The pass.

Robert Horry has been making that corner three-pointer for years.

Kobe Bryant has been making that penetrating assist for, what, weeks?

The Lakers won a mere first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers here Sunday with that jumper.

They will win a third consecutive championship with that dish.

While today all of Los Angeles understandably wants to hug Horry--although we hope not in such a life-threatening manner as Shaquille O’Neal did--we should save a little love for Bryant.

It’s official now, you know.

Twenty-three years old, and all grown up.

Taking the inbounds pass from Rick Fox with 10.3 seconds remaining and his team trailing by two points.

Dribbling down the right side against nemesis Ruben Patterson, the self-proclaimed “Kobe Stopper.”

Dribbling into what becomes a double-team with one of the best defensive players in league history, Scottie Pippen.

Dribbling into a big moment, a heroic moment, a Kobe moment.

Then passing that moment to the open man.

The amazing thing wasn’t that Horry made the jumper with 2.1 seconds remaining.

The amazing thing was that he didn’t faint first.

Said Horry: “Last year Kobe wouldn’t have made that pass. He believed in himself more than his team. But all this year, he’s changed.”

Said Bryant: “Just maturity. Just growth.”

Said Horry, laughing: “I still hoped I would get it. I mean, sometimes Kobe gets that extra jumping ability and just jumps over people.”

Not this season. Not this series.

In leading the Lakers to a three-game sweep despite shooting only 35%, Bryant leaped only over the belief that if he’s not scoring, he’s not contributing.

He either led the team, or was tied for the lead, in three-pointers, free throws, assists, steals and blocked shots.

In the old news department, tales of Bryant’s selfishness are now matched by descriptions of his afro.

He’s simply not that guy anymore.

He now understands the pleasures of watching someone else present his handiwork.

“It was an incredible feeling, watching that ball in the air,” he said of Horry’s shot. “I was like, ‘Go in! Go in!’ ... It was like it was in slow motion.”

He now appreciates how his teammates gladly pay him back, witness O’Neal’s monster pick that set him free for the three-pointer that set up that final play.

“A beautiful pick,” he said, as if describing a painting. “I was wide open.”

He now understands that only by sacrificing himself can he find himself.

And all that other Phil Jackson gobbledygook.

“Last year, I realized I had to try to make my teammates better, that was a weakness,” Bryant said. “Like any weakness, I worked on it.”

And now that weakness has become a strength, one that the Lakers are admiring and displaying like a shiny new trinket.

“This shows his maturity, it’s been like this all year,” Brian Shaw said. “He doesn’t force things anymore. He trusts us now. You saw today, he trusted Robert.”

Something Pippen will never forget.

“Kobe is a great player, and great players make great plays, and that’s what he did,” acknowledged the suckered star. “He believed in his teammates.”

And, wouldn’t you know it, the kid is finally achieving the results he sought all along.

He is not this team’s most dominant player but, slowly, carefully, particularly now, he has become its leader.

Jackson talked about it before the game, noting how Bryant helps the other players decipher the video, work the practice floor, find their game faces.

“It’s markedly different from last year, but an acceleration from what he was doing this season,” Jackson said.

And to watch him make the game-winning pass when he could have forced up a game-tying shot?

Jackson said he had already seen it in his eyes.

“During the course of the game, we made eye contact, and I told him I thought he was pushing it,” Jackson said. “He said he would be all right. I told him his decisions were not all right.

“He said, ‘I’ll get better.’”

So he did. And so did the Lakers.

And so when it was finished Sunday, nobody shouted louder or pumped his fist higher than a guy who did not make the winning shot, Kobe Bryant running off the cluttered floor, glaring into the stunned crowd, the two-time defending champions following him.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.