ORLANDO — Trying to pound the frustration out of his mind, Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant slumped on the bench, repeatedly hitting his forehead with a fist.
Are the NBA Finals slipping away from Bryant again?
Is the best closer in basketball choking?
“You know, we’re all frail human beings,” L.A. coach Phil Jackson said Tuesday after the Lakers dropped a 108-104 decision to Orlando in Game 3, letting the Magic back in the best- of-seven series.
This was the year Bryant was supposed to back an Olympic gold medal with an NBA championship he could call his own. Even recent nemesis Shaquille O’Neal insists he is cheering for his former L.A. teammate.
Bryant cannot blow this one. Or can he?
For all his singular-name greatness, here is the problem with Kobe: With all his Count Dracula scary stares, he must be heck to live with as a teammate. He seems to inspire by letting teammates know they dare not fail him. Which is fine. Until the pressure is on and everything falls apart for the mere mortal Lakers.
“If they can’t stand up to that, they can’t play on this team,” Jackson said. “You have to be able to stand up to that and play through it.”
Asked whether Bryant or Cleveland superstar LeBron James was the best player on Earth with the game on the line, U.S. Olympic team and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski diplomatically said, “I’d like LeBron to dribble it and then hit Kobe.”
Coach K can have Kobe or King James.
If I’m starting a Dream Team, my first pick on the NBA playground would be Orlando center Dwight Howard.
As much as sponsors who pull the strings and pay the bills in this league wanted the Finals to be all about Bryant and James, it’s a bad idea to tug on Superman’s cape.
Or as a fan of Howard so eloquently stated with a sign waved in the stands as Orlando’s center smacked the Lakers with 21 points and 14 rebounds in Game 3: “1 puppet down; 1 puppet to go. Superman’s not no stinkin’ puppet.”
At 90 minutes before a must win for the Magic, Howard rolled into the arena parking lot behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a car you don’t normally see on the road unless there’s a princess waving from the back seat.
When Howard emerged from the $400,000 car, he was wearing a pink sweater, before he went to change into his superhero’s costume.
“I told my teammates you’ve got to continue to believe,” Howard said.
Bryant scored 17 in a dazzling first quarter, including a four-point play on a long jumper that had spectators scurrying to pick up jaws from the floor.
Then — poof! — all the wonderful stuff that Bryant had going on was gone. He missed 11 of his final 14 shots. He sat on the bench when his L.A. teammates made a furious rally early in the fourth quarter.
But at crunch time, when Bryant is supposed to be a coldblooded killer, he clanked jumpers, he missed a free throw that caused him to pound his head and allowed the basketball to be stripped from his grasp by Howard on the game’s most-telling possession.
A year ago, the Boston Celtics physically beat Bryant and the Lakers into submission during the Finals.
But if Orlando becomes only the second team since the NBA adopted the 2-3-2 format for the Finals in 1985 to come back from a 2-0 deficit, it would adversely and forever affect the way we regard Bryant.
“This isn’t a cupcake team,” Bryant said of the Magic.
Returning home after dropping two games in Los Angeles, Howard and Orlando had the magic touch, shooting an NBA Finals record 62.5 percent from the field, impressing a crowd of 17,461, which included golfer Tiger Woods.
How often is Woods ever the second-best athlete at any sports venue?
And we’re not talking about Bryant.
In the NBA, size matters. It’s as true now as during the prime of any dominant big man in league history, from Bill Russell to Kareem Abdul- Jabbar to Tim Duncan.
Bryant can make amazing happen as anybody in the game.
But he’s no Superman.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
