NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

There will be many that will disagree with the Ron Artest move to L.A., but you will not find me to be one of them. The Lakers just won the title and that is no time to sit still. Those of you out there that have won a title in anything will understand that statement. Those of you that have not will be mystified.

It works like this. You fight hard, get lucky, work hard, play D, hit some big shots, get hot, come together, get a break or two and the next thing you know, your team owns the NBA Championship trophy. Now comes the hard part. You have convinced yourself that you are great and you may be, but there was also the get lucky, hit big shots, come together, etc. stuff that helped you get there.

Changes will be needed and Ron Artest will be a big change for the Lakers.

Ron Artest will soon help Kobe to seek another NBA title

Still some will disagree.

The Lakers have all the shots they need, Kemo Sabe, and they don’t need Ron Artest taking them out of their offense, shooting shots he that should not, making it possible that more efficient players are unable to do their thing. Yes, Ron Artest shot 40 percent from behind the arc last season. But he also shot 40 percent inside of it, and that’s … awful. That’s just not good. While taking fewer than four free throws a game.

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Image: Zuma Press

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

You snickered at him, didn’t you? You know, that time Kobe announced that he would like to win the NBA title without Shaq. You remember. Hey, did the same thing myself.

How many NBA players have announced they wanted to be the man and win the title without the help of another superstar? 4,203 to be exact. Kobe was one of them and you laughed.

This NBA title belongs to Kobe Bryant

Now Kobe has done it and done it in style. The Lakers are champions and it is because of Kobe Bryant and not Shaq or anyone else. Kobe has become the best two guard in the game and taken his team to the NBA Championship.

Bryant led the Los Angeles Lakers to their 15th NBA crown, defeating the Orlando Magic in five games courtesy of a 99-86 victory Sunday night. While this is Bryant’s fourth ring, it’s his first without O’Neal and as such the one that redefines his career and, indeed, ends the Shaq discussions.

It secures his legacy as one of the greatest players in NBA history and adds some measure of proof to the teammate testimonials that he isn’t the same me-first, often petulant player of his youth.

It wasn’t Kobe’s 32 points a game this series or Finals MVP honors that changed everything. It’s that he finally became the leader of a championship team, the center of a group that was built around him and the star who learned he couldn’t prosper until he stopped trying to do it alone.

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Long live the Kobe!

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Final Score: Lakers 99 Magic 86
The rest of this was written in the middle of the fourth quarter.

Kobe Bryant has been a complete player for a long time, but only now as he puts together a Laker Championship without the help of a big guy named Shaq, that Kobe’s complete game is being noticed. One of the best things he does is close out games. Kobe gives meaning to the saying ice water in the veins.

He passed the ball to Derek Fisher on both of his big threes the other night. That is right, he passed the ball. Most of the time we only think of Kobe shooting and scoring, but he does it all.

We are witnessing, before our own eyes now, the maturation of Kobe and possibly as soon as tonight the championship essence of Kobe.

He is the greatest closer of today’s game, finishing off foes with that legendary, step-on-your-neck killer instinct. But clearly Bryant has learned between those dynastic days of three straight titles and today that winning games all by himself is pretty futile. And maybe that’s why he started trusting his teammates more and at times serving as the game’s most glamorous decoy ever.
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Kobe does it all

It is midway through the fourth quarter and the Lakers have a huge lead in the game, the Magic will need a sizable miracle to get back into this game. Kobe is not going to allow that to happen and he may do it by passing!

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

The Los Angeles Lakers are a team known for talent and coaching and Kobe Bryant. What they are not known for is toughness. In last year’s series against the Boston Celtics, the lack of toughness haunted them and drove them out of the playoffs.

This year they face the Orlando Magic a team known for toughness with one of the toughest players in the league, the very physical Dwight Howard. Everyone felt the Lakers were the better team, but Orlando was hot and playing physical. Would the Lakers fold up and not play up to their potential.

Would Kobe play it cute? Would Pau Gasol play it safe?

Kobe and the Lakers are showing toughness

No, the Lakers came to play and have brought surprising toughness.

In these moments, two things became abundantly clear: The Lakers weren’t going to let Orlando’s physical play get to them, and the Lakers had added a thick outer callous since the Boston Celtics beat them up in last year’s Finals.
All season they have talked about being tougher. But toughness, like character, isn’t learned, but rather forged.

Through experience, from failure, with regret and desire fueling the hot fire it requires to be fed.

It wasn’t until Thursday night though, that the Lakers were pushed hard enough to show how much they had hardened.

“It was a game we had to work so hard for and fight through so much and in the end it really paid off,” Gasol said.

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No, the Lakers will never be compared to some of the Piston championship teams, last year’s Lakers, or even the Shaq Kobe Laker teams, but this team has found the toughness they needed to survive and gain victory.
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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Why do you doubt this guy year after year, thinking he can’t coach his way out of a paper box unless he has a superstar box cutter on his team. That is the excuse you have used for years. Oh, Phil, he has that superstar player, that is why he wins.

The only problem with that argument is the other coach, the one coaching the team Phil is beating, also has a superstar player on his team and he is losing. Meanwhile, Phil just keeps on winning and it looks like the Lakers led by a superstar named Kobe Bryant, will win the NBA title for Phil.

Kobe Bryant believes in Phil Jackson

So can Phil coach? You bet he can.

When Orlando’s Dwight Howard missed his two free throws near the end of regulation, Jackson, his Lakers down by three points, chose to inbound the ball and have the Lakers go the length of the court. He figured that an inbounds pass at midcourt would likely have drawn an immediate foul.

Going all the way down the court, the Lakers were able to get the ball in to Bryant, then to Ariza and then to Fisher.

“I do think some of it the credit does belong outside of myself, to my teammates, to Phil,” Fisher said. “Just the way that he’s willing to stick with certain people that he believes can help get the job done. It’s not always about statistically what is this guy going to bring to the table.

“A lot of coaches won’t have that kind of faith, confidence, that kind of perseverance to figure he’ll be rewarded in the end. Phil doesn’t have to say anything to me. We’ve been together a long time, been through a lot of games. We understand.”

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

The Lakers are primed and ready and feel that no team can stop them from taking the NBA 2009 title series from the Orlando Magic.

Who cares about the Celtics and the injured Garnett?

Who cares about the Cavaliers and the non-talking LeBron?

Who cares that Dwight Howard seems to be coming into his own and was more than Cleveland could handle?

Kobe is focused

Not the Lakers, their focus is only on winning the title and not on who shows up to play against them or how they got there. Even though Jackson could retire and Kobe could go free agent, the Lakers will have no distractions. They will only have their eyes on the prize!

Like the Celtics last spring, the Lakers’ hunger was evident on the eve of the Finals. Their resolve combined with their playoff experience of the past two seasons makes them the favorite of many pundits to win the franchise’s 15th NBA championship.

“Obviously, we’re mad,” Gasol said. “We’re upset about losing in the Finals, especially the way we lost. Also, the last game, we just felt we could have given it a better shot than we did. But it didn’t happen, and now we’re here again.”

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

It is like a secret recipe that is just not a secret anymore. Sort of like adding your favorite condiment to your burger. No matter how badly cooked, just adding a little mustard or hot sauce or whatever you like, will turn it into a great meal.

Watching the Lakers dismantle the Nuggets the other night, the thought struck me that Kobe likes to watch his team play on the court until they need him to turn it up and win the game for them.

Kobe to the rescue

Late in the game the Nuggets flashed Carmelo Anthony down the floor for 3 quick jumpers, one of them a 3, and quickly cut the score from a 20 point Laker lead to a 14 point Laker lead with 6 or 7 minutes to go. Kobe quietly made a stop and go slashing drive to the basket for a layup, a pump fake and go from the left side that ended with a jam, and a fading 3 point shot from the right side to jack the Laker lead back up to 20. It looked effortless.

“He wants to be the best player to ever have played this game,” Lakers guard Derek Fisher(notes) said. “That’s what he works at every day. He feels like however many more years he plays in this league, winning championships is the thing that separates guys within that discussion. When you talk about the best ever, there are three or four guys who always come up because their teams won championships. That’s his No. 1 concern.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Every year you hear the same thing about how the NBA is rigged so it will be a final with Boston and L.A. or a final with LeBron and Kobe or Shaq and Tim Duncan and every year we all fall for the same story line.

But the NBA is not rigged. There, it had to be said. Well, there were those times when my Pistons were, uhh, let’s save that story for another time and just stick with the NBA is not rigged, even though we know it is.

“The Lakers paid $50,000 to win that game. They got their money’s worth,” said a Denver player, not wanting to be identified for fear of retribution from the league.

Was the outcome rigged? I refuse to believe it was.

The 16 field-goal attempts the Nuggets missed during the fourth quarter had much more to do with the defeat than any of the 30 personal fouls called against Denver by the referees.

Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson and the Lakers organization were fined $50,000 by the NBA for complaining about the calls in Game 4, won decisively by the upstart Nuggets.

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George Karl thinks something stinks

When Kenyon Martin wanted to complain to the press about the referee’s favoring the Lakers, Chauncey Billups came to the rescue.

“Don’t let the league take your money,” Denver teammate Chauncey Billups told Martin.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

It is a great time in the NBA when legends are being born and young players are maturing into great players. As an example, the battle of player supremacy is going on between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

It does not matter which side of this debate you take or even if you do not take a side at all, because this is just great theatre in the NBA.

Side note on theatre: watched Night at the Museum II with Ben Stiller and Amy Adams (not to mention the wife and kids). It was a great movie well worth the millions of dollars to just purchase tickets, pop, and popcorn. It managed to keep all of the characters from the original movie and introduce some new ones, most notably Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart.

Hey, we can’t always be watching the NBA playoffs, you know.

LeBron James makes gamewinner in game 2

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. One game after LeBron won the game for the Cavaliers at the end, Kobe Bryant strikes back.

This is a sport of superstars and the NBA has been waiting a long, long time for two such transcendent stars to fortify its Final Four. They’re fighting for an NBA championship, yes, but Bryant’s ferocity won’t allow him to let go of the title as the game’s best closer. Bryant still makes the biggest plays, the biggest shots, when it matters most.

So, Bryant made a trip to Denver for Game 3 of the West finals and buried the Nuggets with 41 points, with a rebel’s resolve. With Denver’s J.R. Smith(notes) draping him, Bryant swished a 3-pointer with 69 seconds left. With his legs wobbly, with nearly 20,000 people in the Pepsi Center cursing his name, Bryant delivered four free throws in the final 22 seconds of the 103-97 victory.

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So if you are at the movies with the family, like me, you can almost rush home and just watch the end of the fourth quarter to see the most heroic moments. But it is still better to see the whole game.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Chauncey Billups is all the rage right now. It seems like everything he does works and everything he touches turns to gold. Gold Nuggets, that is.

Always known as a heady player when he was a Piston, nothing has changed while on the Nuggets. Check out this YouTube of Chauncey dropping the ball off of Kobe’s back to create a score.

If the Nuggets win they will have to point to Chauncey and say he led them there. Funny thing is, if Chauncey was still with the Pistons they might not have gone any further than they did. The Nuggets give Chauncey a chance to shine in a way that the Pistons would not have.

So please, Piston fans, understand why Chauncey had to go and wish him good luck with the Nuggets.

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