BOSTON — A side door swung open to the Los Angeles dressing room, and there sat Lakers star Kobe Bryant, stripped to the waist, looking beat and very alone.
Will the MVP of the NBA please stand up?
At the worst possible time, when the whole basketball world is staring at him, Bryant is trying to do it all at the Finals and coming up short.
And it makes him mad enough to curse a blue streak.
While losing to Boston 108-102 on Sunday, Bryant used a lot of words he never learned in church to describe the frustration of being winless in two games of this best-of-seven championship series.
As the Lakers fell behind by as many as 24 points in the fourth quarter, Bryant did not hold back his anger toward struggling L.A. teammates during breaks in the action.
What was the message?
“Get our beep in gear. Play beep harder,” said Bryant, supplying his own censorship for his foul language.
In this case, MVP stood for most vile profanity.
“A bunch of other beeps,” confessed Bryant, describing a tirade that sounded like all the angry taxis in Boston at rush hour. “It was beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. ‘Eddie Murphy Raw’ times 10.”
While there were probably more deserving candidates from among New Orleans guard Chris Paul, Boston forward Kevin Garnett and LeBron James of Cleveland, this season’s MVP award was given to Bryant, apparently in recognition for finally reaching maturity at age 29.
His petty feuds with former teammate Shaquille O’Neal were a thing of the past, the serious missteps in his marriage were forgiven and his pouty demands to get him traded away from Los Angeles were forgotten when the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol.
But there was the same, old, petulant Bryant at the Garden, getting slapped with a technical for bickering about not getting a foul called when he took the basketball hard to the hoop.
You can curse at teammates and get away with it.
Say something mean to the ref and you get punished for acting bratty.
The Celtics took command of the series, in large part because they outscored Los Angeles 27-10 from the free-throw line.
“Didn’t notice,” said Bryant, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
On the eve of Game 2, when asked if he was starting to feel the pressure of lifting his teammates to victory, Bryant had responded with a wry smile and a clever joke.
“I’d much rather have the pressure of this moment, as opposed to having the pressure of deciding which swim trunks I’m going to wear in Bora Bora: the Gucci ones or the Yves Saint Laurent ones,” Bryant said.
Life’s a beach.
But, if the Lakers don’t figure a way to get Bryant in the groove, their championship dreams are going to die.
And the league MVP has no excuses. For crying out loud, Bryant is often being checked by Boston’s Ray Allen, never mistaken for a defender in the mold of Bill Russell.
Bryant did score 30 points in Game 2, but is shooting an unremarkable 41 percent from the field in the series.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Bryant said. “We’ve come too far to really sweat being down 2-0. We’ve got to go home and handle our business.”
Sure, the visitors made a big fourth-quarter run when Boston began dozing on a big lead. In fact, the Lakers cut what had been an embarrassing deficit to 104-102 when Bryant made two free throws with 38 seconds remaining in the final period.
But the league MVP never got a meaningful touch of the basketball again while the Lakers desperately searched for a way to steal a victory during the last precious ticks on the scoreboard clock.
The big rally by Los Angeles ultimately proved futile except as a face-saving gesture. But can the Lakers really take the momentum of too little, too late from Boston all the way back home to California, where this series shifts for the next three dates?
“No, no,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “It’s 2,500 miles away. It’s too far to carry it.”
There’s only one way L.A. is going to win the championship now.
Bryant must carry the Lakers.
He’s the only one big enough for the job.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
