Lamar Odom joins the action and it’s like old times for the Lakers
There were those long arms, digging underneath Carlos Boozer, wrapping around the basketball, flinging it back toward redemption.
There was that feathery touch, the ball lightly dropping through the rim, the stands opening with a roar, the earth finally closing under his unsteady feet.
And, oh yeah, there was that smile. Walking down a Staples Center hallway Sunday afternoon, for seemingly the first time this spring, Lamar Odom smiled.
“I know how this works, I’ve been through this before,” he said. “At any moment, I can go from the goat to the guy.”
Welcome back, guy.
On a day the Lakers took another postseason step, Odom embarked on an equally difficult journey, going from what his coach once described as MIA to what witnesses would agree was WOW.
On a day when Kobe Bryant saved the Lakers, it was Lamar Odom who saved Kobe Bryant, following two Bryant misses with baskets in the final five minutes to help secure the Lakers’ 104-99 victory over the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference semifinal opener.
During those final moments he also blocked one Boozer shot, helped force another Boozer turnover, and finished with six fourth-quarter rebounds, including four of the Lakers’ five offensive rebounds. He finished with nine points and 12 rebounds.
Kardashian that.
Said Coach Phil Jackson: “That was the kind of energy we have to have.”
Said teammate Pau Gasol: “Lamar has not been playing his best, but he was able to shake everything off and come out and give that aggressiveness that we need.”
About the only thing Odom couldn’t do in those final moments was save Bryant from a startling photo spread that ran in this newspaper’s magazine Sunday morning, Kobe posing in feathery white attire that made him look like a cross between Prince and Iman. Once again we ask, where are the people supposedly in charge of Bryant’s public image?
Regardless, the only poses that counted were the ones the Lakers struck after blowing a 14-point lead in the final minutes. They actually trailed the undermanned Jazz by four points in the final four minutes before Bryant, Gasol and Odom carried them home.
“We’ve got to do better than that — these games always shouldn’t have to come down to Pau and Kobe,” Odom said.
He didn’t put himself in that clutch group, because he knows this spring has been different, because he has been different.
In last year’s championship postseason, he averaged 12 points and nine rebounds, and collected seven double-doubles in 23 games.
In this postseason, he is averaging eight points, eight rebounds and has yet to have a double-double.
This is not the same Lamar Odom who scored 17 points with 10 rebounds in last year’s title-clinching game in Orlando. This is not the same guy who had 19 points and 14 rebounds in the important Game 5 victory in the conference finals against Denver.
This Odom has not attacked. This Odom has not defended. When Jackson called him MIA after only two games of this postseason, the most amazing thing was that this Odom couldn’t argue with him.
“That’s my coach,” he said Sunday. “Coaches coach, and players play, and I stay in my place.”
There are strong suspicions that he is in a painful place because of a shoulder injury that he refused to disclose —”Yeah, I got things, but so does everybody, I’m not blaming anything,” he said.
There are also wonders about his ability to handle the increased pressure that comes with being in a constant limelight after his marriage to Khloe Kardashian — “Nah, that’s fine, I’ve been heckled a lot worse than somebody calling me ‘Mr.Kardashian.’ ”
Whatever, he had rarely shown up until Sunday afternoon, when he handled the Jazz’s being on his back and Andrew Bynum’s being on the bench, just like the good old days.
“This time of year, it’s all about what you can do in the clutch, and I’m comfortable on the floor in those situations,” he said. “I know these moments will come, and I am ready for them.”
With 4:53 remaining, Bryant missed a jumper, but Odom was there for a follow dunk to tie the score. With 2:03 left, Odom blocked Boozer’s shot with the Lakers leading by one. With 49.9 seconds left, Odom followed another Bryant miss with a fall-away put-back to give them a three-point lead, and the game was never any closer.
“Just effort,” Odom said. “Just playing hard.”
Somebody fell, Odom caught them. Somebody stumbled, Odom righted them. Just like old times, the cheers rocking the Staples Center court, Odom’s sweaty head and jutting jaw bobbing in triumph, hey, look what we found.
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