LOS ANGELES — The champions couldn’t make a shot, and their nervous fans buzzed like those World Cup vuvuzelas.
Kobe wasn’t being Kobe. Rajon Rondo was whipping around them, zipping passes and sniping at rebounds. The mighty Lakers trailed the Celtics by 13 points in the third quarter.
Could Kobe and the Lakers actually lose Game 7 on their own court?
What happened next was inspirational. In the Lakers’ 83-79 win Thursday night, the home team went on a 30-22 surge in the fourth quarter, a true team effort, featuring everyone from Kobe Bryant to Sasha Vujacic. The Lakers are still the champions, for the 16th time, giving Kobe Bryant his fifth ring and Phil Jackson his 11th, and the waft of champagne filled the bowels of the Staples Center.
“This was the hardest one by far,” said Bryant, who won the NBA Finals MVP for the second consecutive June. “I wanted it so bad, and sometimes when you want it so bad, it slips away from you. My guys picked me up.”
Ten minutes before tipoff, their purple hearts racing, a father and son weren’t walking toward Staples Center as much as they were floating. Suddenly, they stopped. Dad pulled out a camera and had a stranger snap a picture of himself and his boy — wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey and a smile — in front of the looming 17-foot statue of Earvin Johnson.
“Magic is the Lakers,” said the father, Walter Burnham, who lives near Pasadena. “And there’s such a Lakers tradition. Overcoming the Boston Celtics, that’s really Magic Johnson’s legacy. So tonight, it could become Kobe’s legacy. That’s why we’re here.
“I was telling my son in the car — this could be the most significant sporting event you go to in your entire life. And he’s only 10.”
This one game would pave the fork in the road for a legend’s legacy. Bryant’s five NBA titles ties Magic.
With a Los Angeles loss, not only would Kobe be stuck on four titles, he would have lost two of the past three Finals to those hated Celtics, the team that Johnson defeated twice in the Finals.
A win, and not only does Kobe now have as many rings as the greatest Laker ever, but he’s one ring away from tying the greatest player ever, a fellow named Michael Jordan.
Asked after the game what this title meant to him individually, Bryant deadpanned and said: “I got one more than Shaq,” in reference to his old teammate Shaquille O’Neal.
No, Kobe didn’t have one of those Kobe nights, in which the stats jump off the morning paper. But he got the job done, yes, sir. He scored a team-high 23 points (on an oy-vey 6-for-24 shooting), including 10 in the fourth quarter. Also, 15 rebounds. And with 25.7 seconds left and Los Angeles up 79-76, Bryant bulldozed into the lane, drawing a foul and calmly hitting two free throws.
The Lakers, to be fair, needed two free throws with 11.7 left from the reserve Vujacic, who gave his squad a 83-79 lead, putting the title on ice and adding an “I” to coach Phil Jackson’s baseball hat, which already has an “X” on it from last year’s 10th title.
“It’s about the joy for this group of guys that put so much work (into the process),” said Jackson, who won six titles with Jordan in Chicago.
There had been only 16 NBA Finals that reached a seventh game, most recently in 2005, when San Antonio defeated Chauncey Billups and the Pistons. This one looked like a bad college game for a while. After three quarters, Boston led 57-53. But there were many timely 3s by both teams in the fourth, and Lakers big man Pau Gasol played the game of his life, scoring 19 points with 18 rebounds, including nine offensive, as he pau-ered himself to the basket with unwavering confidence all night. Holy moly, he was the difference.
“We’ve definitely grown as a team and grown as individuals,” said Gasol, who was battered and bruised during the 2008 Finals against these very Celtics. “It shows.”
Bryant is a complicated hero, to be sure. He’s aloof. Enigmatic. Bryant plays the game with an irascible demeanor. He’s so driven, it’s almost as if he doesn’t even have fun out there.
But he wins at the highest level, to the fifth degree. Pretty magical.
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
RECAP
Hero: With Boston’s Kendrick Perkins out, Lakers post Pau Gasol dominated the paint. The inspired Spaniard scored 19 points along with a game-high 18 rebounds. And with the Lakers up four and 1:30 to go, he punished his way to the basket for a six-point lead.
Zero: Boston guard Ray Allen, who had one of the better shooting performances in history in these Finals, shot 3-for-14 from the field Thursday and 2-for-7 from beyond the arc.
Chalk talk: Playing with a bandage over his finger, Kobe Bryant struggled to find rhythm — and the Celtics’ swarming defense didn’t help. Though Bryant was big down the stretch, he shot 6-for-24, often facing two defenders.
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
A championship run
Trailing 49-36 with 8:24 to play in the third quarter, the Lakers went on a 25-12 run to tie the game at 61 with 7:27 left in the fourth quarter. A look at the game-tying run:
FG FT TOs
Lakers 9-18 7-9 7
Celtics 5-17 1-2 6
