Bryant’s Just 2-2 Much

Down a game still, the Lakers held to what they knew, what they’d so often done before.

That meant an exhausted Kobe Bryant. It meant an inspired Shaquille O’Neal. And everybody else hung on, carried along in the kind of playoff sweat and enthusiasm that used to win championships around here.

Hours after pleading not guilty to a felony sexual assault charge in Colorado, and amid the warmth of a crowd that chanted his name throughout, Bryant on Tuesday night played one of the inspired playoff games of his career, and O’Neal played alongside him.

Bryant scored 42 points and the Lakers, after trailing by 10 points at the half, defeated the San Antonio Spurs, 98-90, Tuesday night at Staples Center and tied the Western Conference semifinals, two games apiece.

O’Neal scored 28 points, took 14 rebounds and made eight of 11 free throws. Together, O’Neal and Bryant, the foundation for an era that faded with last year’s semifinal loss to the Spurs and appeared to further dim when the Spurs won the first two games of this series, were brilliant again.

Game 5 is Thursday night in San Antonio, where the Lakers have lost five consecutive playoff games.

The Spurs arrived Saturday in Los Angeles on a 17-game winning streak and left three days later on a two-game losing streak, perhaps lugging the doubt Phil Jackson had hoped to instill a week earlier, perhaps handed to them by Bryant. Tim Duncan and Tony Parker were again less formidable than they’d been in San Antonio. Duncan scored 19 points on five-for-13 shooting and Parker, who’d burned the Lakers in Game 2, scored 18 points. In two games in Los Angeles, Parker was 11 for 30 from the floor.

Released mid-afternoon from his arraignment in Eagle, Colo., Bryant arrived at the arena in late afternoon. Unlike his previous trips from Eagle, which due to time and traffic turned harrowing, Bryant was ahead of schedule, and even had time for a short nap.

“It’s good to be back,” Bryant said after the game. “I’ve been playing this game since I was 3. It’s so much fun. It’s just good to be out there.”

He made his first shot, a three-pointer from the right wing the entire arena seemingly leaned into, then missed his next four, but kept coming. Overall, he made 15 of 27 shots, scored 15 points in the fourth quarter, and 24 in the Lakers’ runaway second half, in which they outscored the Spurs, 55-37.

“I just feel numb right now,” Bryant said afterward, nearly slumping in his chair. “Just tired. Just want to get some sleep.”

He played 45 minutes, and right to the end. Then he all but fell into Derek Fisher’s arms. He had six rebounds and five assists and did not have a turnover. His 42 points were his most in a playoff game since he put 45 on the Spurs three years ago. Jackson called his game “phenomenal” and O’Neal called it, “fabulous.” Gary Payton called him “great,” and Karl Malone called the whole thing “unbelievable.”

Asked if he’s played a better game, all things considered, Bryant shook his head and said, “Can’t say that I have.”

As usual, hearing or no, Bryant was forceful on the offensive end. When the Lakers’ legs wearied, or appeared to him to fatigue, Bryant rushed the basket. He scored 11 points during the second quarter and was dynamic again early in the third, making a long turn-around jumper as the shot clock expired and then a leaner against Bruce Bowen’s flailing, grinding attempts to stop him.

He hung and he leaned and once, memorably, in the fourth quarter, flipped a shot straight over his head. It fell, and he nodded, as if to say, of course it did.

O’Neal took the ball from there and backed in on Rasho Nesterovic. He made five of seven shots and four of five free throws in the third quarter, when he scored 14 points and the Lakers scored 31, to the Spurs’ 16.

In the same quarter, Parker missed six of seven shots and Duncan took only three shots.

“It came down to Kobe and Shaq, no matter how you slice it,” Spur Coach Gregg Popovich said. “Those two guys were just fantastic.”

By midway through the fourth quarter, the Lakers were gone again, swept along by Bryant, somehow. The Lakers are 4-0 on the days he bounds between Los Angeles and Colorado. In those games, he has averaged 30.5 points.

He plays those days away, through narrowed eyes and fist pumps. And there is so much to it he might never be able to explain.

“Ah, man, you know, there is. There is,” he said. “It is kind of like a psychologist. It takes your mind away from so many things. So many things.

“I don’t know. The pressure. The stress. Get out on the basketball floor, it’s an escape. It’s fun.”

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Top Scorers

Most points in a game during 2004 playoffs:

*--* Player Team Opponent Pts Date Kobe Bryant LAKERS San Antonio 42 May 11 Sam Cassell Minnesota Denver 40 April 18 Sam Cassell Minnesota Sacramento 40 May 4 Kobe Bryant LAKERS Houston 36 April 19 Kenyon Martin New Jersey at New York 36 April 25 Mike Bibby Sacramento Dallas 36 April 29 Baron Davis New Orleans at Miami 33 April 30 Mike Bibby Sacramento at Minnesota 33 May 4 Dirk Nowitzki Dallas at Sacramento 32 April 18 Shaquille O’Neal LAKERS at San Antonio 32 May 5

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