He Can’t Stop Himself

There is a difference between a guy who will shoot a three-pointer and a three-point shooter, and so Kobe Bryant is torn.

He’d grant that, probably, though he heaved seven three-point shots Sunday afternoon, when he scored 34 points in that Allen Iverson kind of way, with lots of shots and lots of contact and just enough conscience.

There’s also a difference between someone who will score ... and a scorer.

No one really minded, because the Lakers will spend these three days off having won the first game of a best-of-five series against the Portland Trail Blazers, who scurried home after the game and won’t return until Wednesday morning.

Phil Jackson allowed that Bryant took a handful of shots he shouldn’t have, including one that got him a couple minutes of down time with the coaching staff in the fourth quarter.

Still, Shaquille O’Neal wore a three-Trail Blazer suit for most of Game 1, and on those occasions Bryant has very strong urges toward offensive responsibility. So if 28 shots wins it, no one would argue, and the topic was a light one Monday afternoon.

As O’Neal offered during a discussion about reputed “Kobe Stopper” Ruben Patterson: “He stopped him from getting 35.”

O’Neal burst into a grin and everybody chuckled and the conversation moved on to Game 2, Thursday at Staples Center, by which time the Trail Blazers will have devised a way to defend O’Neal with rakes and tire irons.

In the past, these are the conversations that would become grim, after Bryant shot and O’Neal glared and other players stood on the perimeter waving their arms a lot. Not now. The Trail Blazers prefer Bryant from 25 feet out to Bryant from one foot over, so they gather around Shaq and beg the Lakers to shoot over the triple team and hope they miss. The Lakers made eight of 20 three-pointers, Bryant two of seven, and the rest of them understand.

“That’s something he’s going to have to do to keep the defense honest, is to take a shot,” Jackson said. “[He] doesn’t have to search for them. We have other players on the team that are better at that. He knows that, admits that. But there’s nothing wrong with him using that as an opportunity here and there to keep the defense honest, if that’s what they’re going to give him.

“What we don’t like is if it becomes a cheap thrill, some easy way to get points. Because they can run off long rebounds and they can run off the distraction of guys chasing the ball at the offensive boards and getting us out of position.”

There was little sense that Bryant went on some personal scoring hunt, because Patterson rarely was a factor on defense, and because Bryant has had the kind of season that suggests he’s over that. He was open. He’s a scorer. Though he missed three-quarters of his three-point attempts in the regular season, he shot without regret.

It was sort of the plan, after all. One of his recent projects has been his 24-foot jumper. So, standing five feet open, almost closer to Chick Hearn than any defender, he shot, without regret, because that’s what all the extra gym time was for.

“Tex Winter has talked to me several times about just taking what the defense is giving me instead of trying to penetrate and dish it out all the time, or penetrate and try to get to the hoop myself,” Bryant said. “Just taking the easy jump shot.

“I never concentrated on it, really. Especially three-point shooting, I never paid that much attention to it.”

He would like to improve, he said, “If teams continue to give me wide-open looks. It seems like a simple shot to me.”

Then again, “It’s pretty difficult to try to improve on the fly. But, I have some experience. This season I went to my left hand after a couple days of practice, so that’s where I get my confidence from, in believing I can do it.”

The Trail Blazers will let him have at it. They have to. They cannot defend O’Neal at the basket and Bryant at the arc and in the lane, particularly if Derek Fisher, Rick Fox or Robert Horry is making outside shots. Fisher made two of three three-pointers Sunday, and should have taken more. Fox made two of five.

“I think he’s really just thinking about winning at this point,” Fisher said. “You can see the emotion he was playing with [Sunday]. He could have gone 0 for 28, it really didn’t matter. He was playing hard, he was playing with energy, playing with effort. He led our team in a lot of ways, so the main thing is not pressing.

“We’re comfortable with what’s going on with his game, because he’s sharing the basketball and he’s playing within our team concept 99% of the time.”

What’s left, perhaps, is the tiniest personal challenge, because every once in a while he can’t help himself.

“I think he’s stepping up to the challenge of the so-called ‘Kobe Stopper.’ That’s good,” O’Neal said. “I think sometimes they want to stop me and let everybody else get theirs or let me get mine and stop everybody else. So, as long as we play good team basketball, none of those strategies will work. We’ve seen it before. This is nothing new to us. This is our type of basketball.”