ShareThisWe may be looking at Kobe Bryant's wildest dream.
While trying to win his first championship as the lead singer of his own band, the Los Angeles Lakers' veteran seems primed to dominate the stage.
At least going by the 100-75 win over Orlando on Thursday night at Staples Center.
Bryant spent Game 1 doing whatever he wanted against the Magic, which had about as much chance as Tony Orlando of stopping him.
He got to the basket. He freed himself up for easy jumpers. And he dished the ball around to teammates, when he felt like it, just because he could.
He finished with 40 points, and even if it seemed like overkill -- he took 34 shots, more than the rest of the starting five combined -- you could hardly blame him. He did what he's wanted to do for five years, since the Lakers franchise fell into his lap.
He put his stamp, his sweat, his emotional yells and his jaw-jutting, angry-guy game face all over this one.
"He had the smell," said Coach Phil Jackson of his singular star. "He found the angle of what he wanted to do on the floor ... and just carried the game his way.
"I thought we went there a little too often, but he said 'keep coming back.' So we did."
They were going to say "No" to Kobe on this night? Not.
"It's a little bit of everything," said Bryant, when asked afterward if the slights and defeats of recent seasons are drawing a new level of intensity out of him.
"It's a lot of motivation, a lot of motivation. I'm using it all right now."
Should we count the ways? We can tick off the ones at the top of the list. There's the Kobe-only-wins-with-Shaq slam, the LeBron-has-passed-Kobe diss and the stinging defeat in the finals a year ago.
And that's just the big stuff we know about.
"The exceptional part (of the game) was Kobe's drive," said Jackson. "He didn't shoot great, but his energy carried us."
You get the feeling Orlando has a big problem -- it's the team in between Bryant and the championship trophy and his first finals MVP hardware.
"He definitely had it going," said teammate Trevor Ariza, of Kobe's high-def glares. "He was on fire tonight. He's going to stay that way the whole series."
You just wonder if anyone will be watching Kobe's Greatest Hour by next week. The Magic looked wholly unconvincing as a championship contender. Anyone can have a horrendous game, but Orlando has a long way to go just to get to "bad."
The key to this series was supposed to be the Magic's ability to make three-pointers -- the not-so-secret weapon that ruined Boston and Cleveland -- and center Dwight Howard's dominance of the paint.
Howard made one basket, and the long distance shooters were too average (8 of 23) to save them. They shot even worse from close range (15 of 54).
Presumably, the series will tighten up -- assuming the Magic loosens up.
The way it looks after Game 1 is that it will be a high-scoring series -- by the Lakers. Whether the Magic is able to crack 100 points and create a little excitement remains to be seen.
The only other constant figures to be Bryant's glare.
"My kids call me Grumpy, from the Seven Dwarfs," said Bryant, when asked about his off-court demeanor these days. "I'm kind of a grouch."
The Magic is kind of in big trouble.
(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton@PE.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
