Jerry West couldn’t do it. Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor couldn’t do it. Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar couldn’t do it.
But Kobe Bryant did it. He lifted the Los Angeles Lakers to a Game Seven victory over the Boston Celtics on Thursday night.
The Lakers repeated as NBA champions with a physically and emotionally draining 83-79 home victory. And Bryant repeated as Finals Most Valuable Player, reaffirming his status as the game’s arguably greatest player.
“This is the sweetest because it was against them and because it was the hardest one by far,” said Bryant, who scored 23 points in the clincher.
The proud Celtics made it very hard for Bryant, double-teaming him on every move and forcing him into difficult shots. He made just 6-of-24 shots and committed four turnovers, highly uncharacteristic for one of the top clutch players in NBA history.
“Tonight it got the best of me,” Bryant admitted. “I wanted it so bad, and sometimes you want something so bad it slips away from you.” In Game Seven against the Celtics, it had always slipped away from the Lakers. Four times, the teams had gone the distance for the title. Four times, the Celtics had celebrated while the Lakers had lamented.
It happened to West and Baylor in 1962 and 1966. Chamberlain joined the agony in 1969 — at home, no less. And in 1984, it happened to Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson in a steamy Boston Garden.
And it looked like it was happening again to Bryant. He had already been through the shame of a 39-point loss to Boston in the Game Six clincher in 2008. Now he looked like he was going to join the long list of Lakers who could not beat the Celtics.
In the first half, Bryant was swarmed by Boston’s defence and made just 3-of-14 shots as Los Angeles fell into a 40-34 hole. He missed his first three shots of the third quarter and watched the deficit balloon to 13 points.
“He was a little bit too animated,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said.
“It seemed like one of those games where nothing was going right for us,” Bryant said. “We felt like we were supposed to win but we just didn’t know how it was going to happen.” Like all great players, Bryant made it happen. He attacked the rim and got to the foul line. He played his usual great defence. And he grabbed rebounds like a 7-footer.
“I had to get to the free throw line and I had to rebound the ball,” said Bryant, whose 15 foul shots were two less than the Celtics.
“He found himself frustrated out there,” Jackson said. “But he stayed with it and found a way to help this team win. Most of it was defensively, rebounding, extra effort.” The team with more rebounds won each game of this series, and Game Seven was no different. The Lakers held a 53-40 advantage on the glass, and Bryant pulled down 15 rebounds, one shy of his season high.
“I had to do something,” Bryant said “Sometimes shots aren’t going to fall and you’ve gotta do something to help your team win.” That seemed to get Bryant out of his funk. He made a couple of jumpers in the third quarter, then scored 10 points in the final period — eight on free throws — as the Lakers completed the comeback.
In the series, Bryant averaged 28.6 points and 8.0 rebounds as he became the fifth player to win consecutive Finals MVP awards.
He did it with a broken index finger and a sore knee that likely needs surgery. And he did it in the face of history, adding to his legacy as perhaps the greatest Laker of them all.
When a reporter mentioned that Bryant — who turns 32 this summer — has a lot of basketball mileage on him, the Finals MVP quickly responded.
“Are you trying to get me motivated for next year?” he asked.
