The score was tied between the Nets and the Almost-the-Lakers, a team playing without Dwight Howard, Metta World Peace and the in-game injured Pau Gasol.
So Kobe Bryant, he of the move the ball, and pass the ball and get everybody else going mentality of late, took matters into his own hands. After all, the lane was open. Wide open.
“I was pretty shocked that the lane was so wide open,” Bryant said.
Bryant was even more shocked anyone might think the ball was going to anyone but him.
“Everybody’s been drinking the ‘Kobe pass’ Kool-Aid,” he said. “So everybody was kind of staying around the perimeter with the shooters.”
So Bryant worked against Gerald Wallace outside, got a step, blew down the lane and unleashed a hellacious dunk over Kris Humphries with 2:45 left to put the Lakers up two.
“It parted like the Red Sea,” Bryant said. “I felt like Moses.”
There was pain in his sprained right elbow, but “after a play like that, you can’t grab your arm,” Bryant said and laughed. “It messes up the swag of the moment.”
So he simply ran the other way, soak in the adoration from a Barclays Center crowd heavily laced with Lakers fans and accepted the appreciation and admiration from all corners en route to a 92-83 victory.
“He’s Kobe Bryant,” said Wallace, who was not surprised by the Bryant highlight reel moment, “especially with the momentum going and the energy. It’s not that hard. But it’s totally a defensive letdown on my part.”
Understated Lakers teammate Steve Nash, “That was a big basket. That was a thrill that he got it there and got it close to the rim. Obviously, a spectacular finish. He’s brilliant.”
Obviously. Bryant’s brilliance, however, wasn’t done.
Brook Lopez immediately responded with a 3-point play for Brooklyn and the Nets had an 83-82 lead. The Lakers answered — not with Bryant but with Antawn Jamison and then got a stop. That’s when Bryant went back to work.
This time, he took Wallace to the rim and, driving left, laid it up and got a goaltending call against Lopez to put the Lakers up three. The Nets were not heard from again as their record of perfection ended against sub-.500 teams as the Lakers prevailed, undermanned and all.
Bryant finished with eight rebounds and four assists while shooting 9-of-24. He wasn’t concerned about his shooting in a decidedly pro-Kobe building.
“If you said to me before the game that Kobe was going to go 9-for-24 with four assists,” interim Nets coach P.J. Carlesimo said, “I’d have taken it no questions asked.”
So Bryant didn’t care he missed some gimmes. But for a struggling Lakers team, there is real concern. First, Howard’s shoulder. Now, Gasol’s foot.
“I’m very concerned about it. We don’t know the extent of the injury but I’m very concerned,” said Bryant, who added hearing “MVP” chants for his first time ever in Brooklyn was “pretty damn cool.”