Just Call It Masterful by Bryant

There were moments Tuesday night of pure Kobe Bryant, when he was the most athletic man on the floor, on any floor, and when his creativity and ferocity unhinged every jaw in a town unjaded by two other generations of basketball greatness.

The Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 112-82, at Staples Center, where Chick Hearn was on the air and Bryant was in it, particularly in the third quarter, in the moments after Shaquille O’Neal was ejected.

Bryant scored 22 points. Just 22, of 112.

In this case, though, his scoring was as much to do with how as with how many. He jumped over the aging Jazz, and through it. He floated short jumpers and lined turn-arounds, and he went to the rim so hard that two Jazz players, three of them, often weren’t enough.

“He pulled some stuff out tonight we hadn’t seen for a while,” Laker guard Brian Shaw said.

O’Neal was assessed two technical fouls in a two-minute, 32-second span of the third quarter, the first for something he said, the second for something he slammed off the face of Jarron Collins. His elbow. The intent, on a rebound of his own miss, was debatable, but the ejection was not. He left with 22 points and three rebounds, the Lakers holding a 68-62 lead, and apparently shrinking.

“A terrible call,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson called it.

The Jazz didn’t think so.

“It was probably out of frustration,” Collins said.

The Jazz was pulling momentum from its jump shots and John Stockton’s energy and O’Neal’s slow walk off the floor, through the tunnel, into the locker room and into the night. He left without speaking to reporters again, and left the game to Bryant and the rest, to the usual Shaq-less formula.

“We just executed our game plan,” Bryant said. “It wasn’t anything extremely emotional.”

Not for him, maybe. But he caused the crowd to gasp at how dynamic he could be, at how much better he was than the other nine.

As the Lakers began to pull away, Bryant drove from the left side, flung himself to the basket, stopped himself in midair, and flipped in a layup through six arms. Lakers, 83-69.

And, in case the Jazz had any ideas about the fourth quarter, Bryant raced the third-quarter clock to zero. He dashed down the right side on a fastbreak, leaped to gather a long, overthrown pass from Robert Horry and even bobbled the ball, then rose to shoot from the baseline, from 14 feet. Over the fingertips of DeShawn Stevenson, Bryant twisted upward and hit the shot at the buzzer. Bryant stared at the crowd, then at his teammates, and then left for the night. Lakers, 87-70.

Jazz, gone. It was outscored, 44-20, after O’Neal was ejected.

“I mean, we looked like a bunch of guys that didn’t even like playing basketball,” Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan said. “They just blitzed us about every way they could. Kobe Bryant was terrific in that stretch.”

Before that, when the Jazz and O’Neal were still around, Bryant had a vicious reverse dunk, perhaps his best of the season.

“That’s a gift,” Jackson said of Bryant’s third-quarter rush. “Being able to step into moments of basketball and play at a certain level, where the game comes to you. And you’re able to control all the stuff that goes on in the game.”

Bryant made three shots in the quarter, all with startling grace. He preferred the dunk.

“For a while there,” he said, “I had thought I was getting pretty old.”

All in all, however, there are the nights when O’Neal and Bryant are overkill, when the system is plenty. Horry scored 14 points and took 11 rebounds. Derek Fisher scored 14. Devean George had 16 and four steals. Samaki Walker had 10 rebounds.

They defended the pick-and-roll--a specialty of the Jazz and the bane of the Lakers--and they shot true (55.3% from the field) and they wasted little effort. The Jazz shot 32.1%. As a result, the Lakers won their 55th game, one fewer than last season, with four games to play.

It appears the Lakers will finish behind the Sacramento Kings in the Pacific Division and Western Conference, but they seem to have some interest in taking the third seed into the playoffs. So, they lately have played some defense (they have not allowed 100 points in two weeks), none tougher than in the first half against the Jazz.