Part 24 (1/2)
But Shaq came through in the game the way I expected. He scored 22 points despite his torn finger and pulled down 15 rebounds despite his troublesome feet. He also helped contain the Spurs' biggest threat, Tim Duncan, who missed 17 of 26 shots from the field.
Although Shaq rallied, this was Kobe's moment. With 6:28 left and the Lakers ahead, 8180, Kobe scored 7 points in an 112 run that sealed the win. Afterward he sounded as if he'd just returned from a meditation workshop. ”I was more centered and focused on all the stuff around me,” he said. ”If you get too emotionally wrapped up in a game, you overlook the little details. You have to step outside the circle.”
That game showed me just how good this team could be in the fourth quarter. In game 4, we were behind by 10 points with 4:55 left, and Kobe came alive again, hitting 2 three-pointers, then making a rebound and put-back in the last 5.1 seconds to put the game away, 8785. Two nights later we went on a 104 run in the final minutes to win the series, 41. This team was finally finding its ident.i.ty as one of the great closers in the game. It was not a moment too soon.
The fans in Sacramento-home to our opponents in the Western Conference finals-loved to hate the Lakers. Ever since I'd joked a few years earlier that the state capital was a semicivilized cow town, the fans had been trying to get back at me, clanging cowbells and screaming obscenities behind our bench, among other diversionary tactics. Of course, it didn't help that we had eliminated the Kings from the playoffs for the past two years.
But this time the team's faithful had reason to be optimistic. Their boys had finished the season with the best record in the league (61-21) and had home-court advantage through the playoffs. The Kings were one of the best shooting teams I've ever seen. In addition to All-Star power forward Chris Webber, the team had a balanced lineup of shooters who could hurt you from all directions, including Vlade Divac, Predrag Stojakovic, Doug Christie, and Hedo Turkoglu, plus a quick new point guard, Mike Bibby, who was fearless when it came to penetrating defenses and putting up clutch shots.
We won the first game in Sacramento, setting a record for consecutive playoff wins on the road (12). But the Kings struck back in game 2, taking advantage of Kobe, who was recovering from an attack of food poisoning. The big surprise came in game 3, which the Kings won handily behind Bibby and Webber, who combined for 50 points. Unfazed, Kobe joked with reporters after the game, ”Well, we're not bored now.”
The miracle shot happened in game 4. It looked bleak in the first half, when we fell behind by 20 points and couldn't get our offense moving. But we s.h.i.+fted the momentum in the second half, slowing down their fast-paced offense and eating away at their lead. With eleven seconds left, we had narrowed the lead to 2. Kobe drove to the basket and missed. Shaq grabbed the rebound and also missed. Kings center Vlade Divac batted the ball away and it ended up in the hands of Robert Horry, who was standing alone at the three-point line. As if everything were scripted, he squared up, released his shot, and watched it drop perfectly as the buzzer sounded. Lakers 100, Kings 99.
This was vintage Robert Horry, the kind of shot that young boys dream about. But we still had a long way to go before we could silence the cowbells. The Kings roared back and took game 5 on their home court, going ahead 32 in the seven-game series. But the Lakers didn't panic. At 2:30 A.M. on the morning of game 6, Kobe phoned his new best friend, Shaq, and told him, ”Big fella, need you tomorrow. We'll make history.” Shaq was still up, of course, mulling the upcoming game, and they revved each other up. ”Facing elimination, this is nothing for us,” Kobe later told reporters. ”He felt the same way I did.”
Shaq was unstoppable that night. He scored 41 points with 17 rebounds and completely dominated in the paint. The Kings threw everybody they could at him, and in the closing minutes both Divac and Scot Pollard fouled out, and all they had left was backup center Lawrence Funderburke, who was helpless against Shaq's inside moves. ”You have to foul me to stop me-period,” Shaq said later. Kobe was also on fire, scoring 31 points, including four critical free throws in the final seconds that nailed down the victory, 106100.
The following Sunday a welcoming committee of Kings fans bared their b.u.t.ts as our bus arrived at Arco Arena for game 7. The players laughed. If nothing else, the prank helped take some of the edge off what may have been the toughest game they'd ever faced. This was an excellent road team, but playing a seventh game on an opponent's court is the most drop-dead-challenging test. The last time I had been in this predicament was as a player in 1973 when we had to beat the Celtics in a seventh game in Boston to win the Eastern Conference finals. That was one of the most unnerving-and exhilarating-moments of my career.
The Lakers were remarkably calm. Earlier that day we had meditated together at the hotel, and I'd been pleasantly surprised to see that everyone was seated and ready to go when I walked into the room. As we sat in silence, I could sense that the players were pulling themselves together, preparing mentally for the showdown that awaited them. These men had been through a lot together and knew instinctively that their connection with one another would be the force to dispel anxiety as the pressure mounted during the game.
They were right. This wasn't just a basketball game; it was a grueling marathon that lasted more than three hours. But in the end, it was the Lakers' collective composure that won the day. The lead changed seventeen times, and the game went into overtime when Bibby made two free throws to tie the score at 100, and Shaq missed a fourteen-footer at the buzzer. It was a brutal test of wills, and, as Fish told Bill Plaschke, we had to dig ”deeper than we've ever dug before.”
I was more animated than usual because I wanted to keep the players focused. Kobe said he thought the Kings were playing better basketball than we were. But we scrambled harder, which paid off in the final minutes of the game. Fox pulled down a playoff career record of 14 rebounds, and Horry grabbed 12 more. Meanwhile, the Kings were visibly shaken. Normally coolheaded, they misfired on 14 of their 30 free throws, while we hit all but 6 of our 33. And during the final two minutes of overtime, they squandered a 2-point lead by missing 5 shots in a row and turning over the ball twice.
The closeout was a group effort. Shaq hit a short jumper, then nailed two free throws, while Fish and Kobe each hit two from the line to put the game out of reach. Afterward the players were so weary they could barely celebrate, but they weren't surprised by the outcome. ”We've been playing together for five years,” said Horry. ”If we don't understand what to do by now, something's wrong.”
Shaq, who played a grueling fifty-one minutes, seemed less buoyant than usual after the game. But as our bus was pulling out of the parking lot, he spotted a crowd of Sacramento fans cursing at us and, lowering his pants, decided to give them a fond farewell, Sacramento style. One of our guys called it ”a full moon rising.”
In my mind that was the t.i.tle game, but we still had the champions.h.i.+p finals to get through. Our opponent, the New Jersey Nets, had one of the best point guards in the game, Jason Kidd, and an impressive power forward, Kenyon Martin, but they didn't have an answer for Shaq. They tried to have rookie Jason Collins cover him, but Shaq walked all over him, averaging 36 points en route to his third straight finals MVP award. Riding on Shaq's shoulders, we swept the Nets and became the first Lakers team to win three rings in a row since the club moved from Minneapolis in the early sixties. Now we could legitimately call ourselves a dynasty.
With this victory, I tied Red Auerbach's record for most champions.h.i.+p t.i.tles won: nine. The media made a big deal about this, especially after Auerbach said it was hard to consider me a great coach because I'd never built a team or trained young players. I said that I was dedicating the victory to my mentor, Red Holzman, who would have been thrilled to see me tie his archrival, had he still been alive.
What mattered more to me, though, was what had happened to the team. When I started with the Lakers I thought we could accomplish great things if we could get to the point where the players trusted one another enough to commit to something larger than themselves. Midway through that long, hard season, when we were being embarra.s.sed by the Memphis Grizzlies, I'm not sure I would have bet money on our chance of making history. But in the final hour, when it really mattered, the players dug deep and formed themselves into a champions.h.i.+p team built on trust.
The player who understood this best-surprisingly-was Kobe Bryant. Not long before, he would have scoffed at the idea. But he had grown, and the team had grown with him. ”We've been through so many battles,” he said, ”the trust naturally grows. The more wars you fight together the more you understand the people you're in battle with.”
One breath. One mind. One spirit.
CHAPTER 18
THE WISDOM OF ANGER
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.