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I expect Kobe to have a monster Finals, but will it be enough??? We'll see.
Celtics provide Bryant fuel for Finals
By Johnny Ludden
Kobe Bryant walked out of the hallway and into the swell, and all around, they flocked to him. Kids wanted autographs. Their parents wanted pictures. Steve Nash, cradling his daughter, came over to offer congratulations. Bryant signed and posed, and, finally, he was free. With the Los Angeles Lakers’ bus idling nearby, waiting to ferry him to his next grudge match, Bryant gave a farewell salute.
One score settled, one more to come.
Bryant dismissed the Phoenix Suns from the Western Conference finals, erasing the stain of two embarrassing, lost seasons, and now comes his toughest test yet. He must do what is expected of all great Lakers. He must beat the Boston Celtics.
Bryant says he didn’t care who the Lakers met in the NBA Finals, and no one believes him. Two years ago, the Celtics denied Bryant his first championship without Shaq. They embarrassed the Lakers, closing the series with a 39-point rout, and afterward Bryant sequestered himself and a few team officials in a back room of Boston’s Garden. For nearly an hour, Bryant simmered as the Celtics whooped and celebrated directly across the hall.
Once Bryant finally emerged, he found Celtics forward Brian Scalabrine hoisting the championship trophy. Bryant stopped to shake Scalabrine’s hand, but there was no hiding the contempt on his face: This player – this Celtics’ role player – held what Bryant wanted.
“He’s the ultimate compe or,” Lakers assistant coach Brian Shaw said. “Anytime he doesn’t accomplish a goal he sets out to accomplish, he takes it harder than anybody.
“To get that close and then to go out the way we went out … that’s what fueled him.”
Beating the Orlando Magic for last season’s championship helped validate Bryant, but it didn’t erase the memories of two years ago. More than any team over the past decade, the Celtics made Bryant look mortal in the 2008 Finals. Everywhere Bryant went on the court, a crowd waited. He shot barely 40 percent over the six games and concluded the series with a 7-of-22 performance. He didn’t trust his teammates enough, and they didn’t give him much reason to do so.
Ron Artest was in Boston for that game, and he walked into the Lakers’ locker room afterward, surprising everyone. His message to Bryant: I can help you. Artest saw what everyone saw: The Lakers’ frontline wilted under the Celtics’ physicality.
Andrew Bynum missed the ’08 Finals with a knee injury and, even in his current limited state, should now help the Lakers counter better. So should Artest, who likely will take on the assignment of defending Paul Pierce, a task that often fell to Bryant.
“There aren’t many people who can guard him,” Artest said. “I’m probably one of the few people who has a chance.”
Artest also was struck by something else he saw that night in Boston two years ago. Never had Bryant looked more frustrated. For Kobe there is only one true standard for greatness: les won. Once again, he had fallen short.
Bryant now enters these Finals seeking his fifth championship, which would tie him with Magic Johnson. Two of Johnson’s les came against the Celtics. No matter how much Bryant tries to downplay the significance of the opponent, deep down, he realizes what beating Boston would do for his own legacy. The game’s greats have distinguished themselves in the league’s most storied rivalry. Now it’s his turn.
“The challenge is to win the championship,” he said. “The Celtics are in the way.”
This is payback for Kobe, and no one does revenge quite like him. The Suns know this as well as anyone. They knocked Bryant from the playoffs in 2006 and ’07 then felt his wrath in the West finals. Bryant averaged nearly 34 points while shooting 52 percent in what stands as one of his greatest series ever. He instilled some urgency into the Lakers after they flat-lined in Game 4, then closed out the Suns in Game 6 with a display of shot-making unrivaled in these playoffs.
“Kobe is so good,” Lamar Odom said, “he makes incredible normal for us.”
Twenty-four of Bryant’s points on Saturday came in the second half. After the Suns closed within three late in the fourth quarter, he spun away from both Grant Hill and Channing Frye and hit a tough fading shot. With Hill again draped over him a minute later, Bryant pump-faked once then rose and buried one more stunning dagger.
“Good defense,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry told Hill.
“Not quite good enough,” Bryant fired back. He grinned and swatted Gentry on his rear. There would be no stopping him on this night.
“Right now he’s the best player in basketball,” Gentry said. “And it’s not even close.”
Bryant hasn’t lacked for fuel to burn in these playoffs. Someone suggested Kevin Durant had already surpassed him in greatness. LeBron James failed to make good on another MVP season. The Suns had twice beaten him in the playoffs.
Now here come the Celtics. Bryant can say he doesn’t give a damn who he plays, but everyone knows otherwise. This is different.
This is payback, and rarely does Kobe leave his scores unsettled.
I expect Kobe to have a monster Finals, but will it be enough??? We'll see.
Kobe being motivated for these finals calls for a resounding....DUH!
The key is going to be if everyone else on that team shares that sentiment.
If they do, I like the Lakers chances. If they don't, gonna be a long series for the Lakeshow.
It's time for Ron-Ron to pull out a little Queensbridge on South-Central Pierce.
It's up to Gasol & Bynum. If Gasol can't function then Bynum will have to impact. If Kobe has to asshole it again it's gonna be a problem.
Vuj will work nicely here as well.
No Posey. No Brown. No House. No Powe.
Celtics will tap that laker ass---in 5
They better hope it's in 5 because games 6 and 7 are in LA and the Celtics aren't winning a championship on the Lakers' home floor.
Bryant’s brilliant playoffs culminate in finals
By Greg Beacham
Among Kobe Bryant’s myriad of inimitable talents is what’s known to opposing coaches simply as the “rise-up.”
That’s when Bryant has a defender blanketing him on the perimeter, obstructing his vision and physically preventing him from driving—yet Kobe simply leaps high enough and leans far enough forward or backward to release a perfect jumper anyway.
Bryant rose up against Grant Hill in the final minute of the Los Angeles Lakers’ conference-clinching victory over the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night, putting his stamp on a 37-point performance that sent the Lakers into the NBA finals with a chance for revenge on the Boston Celtics.
Even with Hill right in his grill, Bryant leaped up and away from the veteran forward and drilled a clinching 23-footer. The basket essentially clinched the Lakers’ victory, and Bryant punctuated it with a pat on Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry’s derriere.
“I said, ‘Good defense,’ to Grant,” Gentry recalled with a rueful smile. “(Bryant) said, ‘Not quite good enough.’ … I thought Grant was going to block the shot. That was a fallaway 3-pointer with a hand in your face, off balance. You know, that’s who he is. That really is who he is.”
Bryant is enjoying arguably the most impressive playoff run of his career, and not because his numbers are any larger than in a previous postseason. He has scored 30 points in 10 of the Lakers’ last 11 games—and moreover, he has willed a team with an injured center, two more inconsistent starters and little bench help beyond Lamar Odom into its third straight NBA finals, starting Thursday night at Staples Center.
The surprising Suns would have had an above-average chance to knock off the defending champions if Bryant hadn’t been at his absolute best. He averaged 33.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 8.3 assists in the series while making 52.1 percent of his shots, repeatedly burning Phoenix for late-game baskets.
As for the breathtaking shot that almost nobody else in the NBA can make consistently, Bryant is almost nonchalant about his ability to rise up when it matters.
“I just had to create a little bit of space,” said Bryant, who stretched out his arms in imitation of an airplane on the way back to the bench. “I had a good look. Looks like a much tougher shot than it actually is. I got a good look. Got my legs underneath me. I was able to knock it down.”
Bryant likely will get another four days off to rest up for the finals. He hasn’t practiced much at all this spring while recovering from several injuries, but after six previous trips to the NBA finals, Bryant knows exactly how to pace his body for the two-month playoff haul.
Although Bryant claimed he didn’t care who the Lakers played in the finals, Bryant sometimes isn’t exactly forthcoming about either his injuries or his passions. It’s tough to believe Bryant isn’t thrilled by the chance to cap another stirring playoff run with a revenge victory over his franchise’s biggest playoff rival, which sent Bryant home from the finals two years ago.
“It’s a sexy matchup,” Bryant acknowledged. “We’re looking forward to this challenge, looking forward to the test.”
There’s another reason many expect Bryant to come out blazing against the Celtics: He didn’t play terribly well two years ago in the finals, his first without Shaquille O’Neal by his side. He averaged 25.7 points and made about 40 percent of his shots against the Celtics, who finished off Los Angeles with an embarrassing 131-92 victory in Game 6.
The Lakers also didn’t have center Andrew Bynum, who was out for the year with an injury, or defensive stopper Trevor Ariza, who had a broken foot. Bynum is hobbling around on torn cartilage in his right knee this time, yet he’s healthy enough to play interior defense and occasionally throw down a dunk or two.
In Ariza’s place, the Lakers now have Ron Artest, who followed up his winning layup in Game 5 with 25 points in the clincher against Phoenix. After two series without a clear-cut defensive assignment, Artest likely will be attached at the hip to Paul Pierce in the finals.
The series was a rare playoff failure for coach Phil Jackson, who won’t lack for motivational tools with a majority of that 2008 team still wearing purple and gold.
“We have … five new members of the team, but some of these guys remember how it felt to lose,” Jackson said. “There’s nothing worse than losing in a finals. It’s about as low as you can get after riding a high, getting through three series, going into the fourth one. I had hoped I’d never experience it, but I’ve done it twice now, so I know it’s a real difficult summer after that.”
Bryant has at times made a show of his focus in these playoffs, responding to reporters’ questions with one-word, humorless answers. His demeanor recalls the unsmiling focus of Michael Jordan, who win six championships—one more than the 31-year-old Bryant will have if he gets the Lakers past Boston this time around.
“Just looking forward to the challenge of it,” Bryant said. “Last time we played them, it was a great learning experience for us. It taught us what it takes to be a champion. With the defensive intensity they play with, the tenacity they play with, we learned a great deal in that series.”
In Renewed Celtics-Lakers Rivalry, Both Teams See Unfinished Business
By Howard Beck
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/sp...all/31nba.html
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