An Epic Hurdle

This time, for the first time, their greatness didn’t come from the sky.

This time, the Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal could jump no higher, stretch no farther.

This time, as a stomach-turning Sunday afternoon became evening, they reached down.

Down past the ego. Down past the glitter. Down past everything the sports world has come to believe about a pretty basketball team that had yet to show its soul.

Down to a spot that perhaps even the Lakers weren’t sure existed.

“Deep,” said Derek Fisher. “Deeper than we’ve ever dug before.”

Deep enough to find something faded, scuffed and absolutely splendid.

Something that looked not like a flowery Bryant jumper, but a scrambling Bryant rebound.

Something that sounded not like a rattling O’Neal dunk, but a swished O’Neal free throw.

Something that today ranks as the greatest win of their era because, as the Lakers reminded everyone, greatness is more than just a pretty face.

On this day, it was a 112-106 overtime victory over the host Sacramento Kings in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

On this day, amid Arco Arena’s deafening jeers, it was a comeback from a nine-point second-half deficit, then a comeback from a last-second miss that would have won the game in regulation, then a comeback from a quick King basket in overtime.

It was Rick Fox chasing. It was Robert Horry diving. It was Fisher on the ground and, most amazing of all, it was Phil Jackson on his feet.

It wasn’t like anyone thought it would be. It was not the power of that Game 7 comeback against Portland, nor the style of the clinchers against Philadelphia and Indiana.

There was not one alley-oop. There was, in fact, a lot more alley than oop.

In the end, greatness was a three-hour task that left the Lakers too breathless to smile and too weary to celebrate.

“It hasn’t been pretty, it’s not going to be pretty,” said Fox. “But we still have the heart of a champion.”

A heart that will now be transplanted to the NBA Finals, where the Lakers will begin the final leg of their quest for a third consecutive championship by playing, well, um, somebody.

The New Jersey who? Where? When?

Why?

This was the title here. The winner of one of the best NBA playoff series ever deserves at least that much.

It was a seven-game series so spectacular, seven games couldn’t decide it.

After 17 lead changes and 13 ties, they needed five extra minutes. It was five minutes that finally uncovered one difference.

When the Kings dug their deepest, they came up with only lint.

Doug Christie threw up two awful, hesitant, clanging three-point attempts. Chris Webber threw up four tentative misses and lost the ball on one tentative dribble.

Only Mike Bibby seemed to really want the ball, and even he finally collapsed under the weight of it all.

The Lakers stood strong, there being so many of them.

“You can tell, the Kings finally felt the pressure,” said Fox. “For us, it was different. It was like, we were right where we wanted to be.”

The Lakers wanted to be at the foul line, where the jittery Kings missed 14 of their 30 chances while the Lakers missed only six of 33.

“I’m pretty sure that was pressure right there,” said Samaki Walker.

The Lakers wanted to be on the floor, where they outhustled the Kings in nearly every important late-game situation.

“Phil is over there shouting, ‘Rebound! Rebound!’ and we’re all getting after it,” said Fox. “We realized, it was our last hurrah, if we didn’t win, we couldn’t three-peat for, what, another four years? We had to leave it all out there.”

Fox, left out for much of the series, led the third-quarter comeback with a sequence of plays that included two offensive rebounds, two layups, an assist and a lunging grab of a ball held at the time by Hedo Turkoglu.

“It’s like I told Chris Webber,” said Bryant. “Our guys don’t budge.”

Horry, who essentially disappeared after his game-winning three-pointer in Game 4, reappeared to grab 12 rebounds and hit the exact same shot during one Laker run.

“We’ve been playing together for five years,” Horry said. “If we don’t understand what to do by now, something’s wrong.”

Even Fisher, obliterated by Bibby for most of the series, shoved him to the ground during the overtime, then stood up to drive the ball into two fouls worth four free throws.

“We continue to believe,” said Fisher.

For anyone to do otherwise would now seem foolish. In hopes of understanding the complex power that is the Lakers, critics, including this one, have searched far and wide.

Turns out, there are times they need only to look deep.

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