Mamba Out: Kobe Bryant’s Perfect Final Game
As farewells go, this one was just exactly right. One game, one monster occasion, that summed up everything that anyone has ever said about Kobe Bryant’s career. A letter of gratitude to both the lovers and the fighters, the fans and the haters. Kobe Bryant’s 20 year contribution to the game of basketball told in four quarters.
Whether it was down to an ingenious bit of misdirection from the Lakers promotional team or just blind luck like they barely deserve, the Lakers rode that Kobe Bryant retirement all the way into the ground. Forget about nurturing the young talent they’ve begun to acquire, this season was all about their retiring icon. A stirring embrace of the past rather than an honest acceptance of future. This was the worst winning season in the franchise’s illustrious history, a mere 17 wins all up, and yet somehow they finished their season with a comprehensive sell-out event of a home game that actually stole the limelight from the Golden State Warriors playing for SEVENTY THREE WINS at the same time. Possibly the crowning (regular season) moment of arguably the finest team we’ve ever seen, in a generation if not all-time, and it was relegated to ESPN2. To put this in context, the Golden State Warriors finished at 73-9 – a new NBA record – while the Los Angeles Lakers have won 65 games in their last three seasons combined.
In a few weeks that uncertain future will hit the Lakers square in the jaw but for now they at least got to witness one last hurrah for the glory years that were. Kobe Bryant was the Los Angeles Lakers. He played his entire professional career for them, coming straight outta high school too so there was no alma mater affiliation to muddy things. His fierce competitiveness made him an enemy to basically all non-Lakers (he has a 40+ point game against every other team in the NBA) and even a few Lakers as well (here’s looking at you, Shaq), yet he must have represented something else to us all because from the moment of his announcement - in poem, of course - the sentimentality flowed from all corners. Sure, the Lakers milked that but there had to be a market for it too.
And as frustrating as the whole retirement circus got (Kobe’s last game in Memphis!!!), come his actual final game it was suddenly appropriate to make a big scene, and the Lakers did him worthy with the spectacle. The lights went down and there was a video tribute featuring current and former players speaking of their respect and adoration for the Black Mamba. Carmelo was there, so was Steph. LeBron showed up. Phil Jackson as well. It closed with a message from Jack Nicholson, who seemed a little surprised that Kobe was retiring before he had managed to (Jack hasn’t made a movie since 2010 but is apparently open if the script/circumstance is right).
If you’re talking Lakers longevity, Kobe Bryant’s 20 seasons with the team is unprecedented. Coming out of high school and straight into the league gave him a jump start on most – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played until he was 42 and yet he and Kobe each lasted 20 seasons in the NBA, only Robert Parish, Kevin Willis and maybe Kevin Garnett if he’s back next time around have played 21. But Jack Nicholson’s courtside presence goes back even further than that.
Jack was there for Mamba Day. So were Snoop Dogg and David Beckham and Kanye West and Jay-Z and so many others. Former teammates like Shaquille O’Neal, Derek Fisher and Lamar Odom all made it. Magic Johnson was the MC of the pre-game tributes. Flea tore up the national anthem on his electric, pedal-amended, bass:
Apparently nobody told Flea to keep it tight because that thing was adorned with all number of improvisational flourishes – great stuff, lad, but there are only so many times the coverage can cut to Kobe with his hand on his chest, keep it succinct bro.
Despite a cast-list in the crowd that would make any Hollywood producer choke on their breakfast martini and stumble frantically across piles of cocaine and unmade film scripts to get to the phone, there was only one true star in attendance on this night. MVP chants went up during pre-game shoot-around. The roof damn near blew off when they announced his name in the starting line-up.
But the silent truth is that Kobe hasn’t been nearly the player of old for a long time now. He shot 35.8% from the field this season. From three point range he was a measly 28.5%. He hasn’t averaged fewer than these 2.8 assists per game since his second season in the league when he started just once and the same goes for his 3.7 rebounds. The off-court reception has been all love and glory but on the court it’s been mostly ugly. Through the first six minutes and twenty-five seconds of this game Bryant missed all five of his field goal attempts.
But then suddenly something clicked. The Utah Jazz weren’t exactly gunning in this one, they’d been eliminated from the playoffs by a Houston Rockets victory that ended roughly twenty minutes before tip-off and with all the pomp of this game, obviously they’d struggle to get going. It was 6-4 to UTA when Kobe missed that fifth shot. On the next possession he was able to hustle back and he came up with a fantastic blind-side block of Trevor Booker as the Jazz PF rose to shoot. Picking up the ball in transition, the Mamba straightened up Gordon Hayward at the free throw line before cutting to his left. Hayward stuck with him but he went for a pull-up pump fake and with his marker caught in the air, Bryant was able to fade towards the baseline and launch a high-arced jumper that floated up above the backboard before falling smoothly through the hoop. Kobe Bryant was going now. Kobe Bryant was feeling it.
He would make five of his next six shots, ranging from fadeaways to driving layups and quickfire threes. After playing all 12 minutes of the first quarter he sat for half of the second before checking back in with 15 points already. Having gotten started he was never going to slow down. The shot attempts came fast and they came often. Makes were met with rapturous cheer while even his many misses drew excited gasps. No shot was a bad shot… unless it was taken by someone other than #24.
Perhaps because of that, the Jazz were up by 15 points at the half. Nobody really noticed. Kobe came out for the start of third and would play all but the final four seconds of the half. Despite already looking pretty exhausted, he continually took advantage of an uncharacteristically soft Jazz defence by playing hard off the dribble as often as he could – and when that wasn’t there he was perfectly happy to flip up a Golden State-esque 21 three point attempts. He made only six, but each one of those six may as well have been a game winner. 22 points from 20 shots. 28 points from 28 shots. The joke from the start of the game was that Kobe might well score 50 from 50 this game but midway through the third quarter that started to seem like it might really happen.
Spinning around Raul Neto he drained a long two from the side for his 431st game with 30+ points. A few minutes into the fourth he ripped a long three for his 134th 40+ point game. Kareem, Jordan, Malone and Nowitzki are the only player with 40 point games aged 37 or older – Dirk did his this season too. Another three. A rebound and outlet to Clarkson. A pull-up from the free throw line. All of a sudden it was only a three point game and the Lakers were hot with momentum.
Utah pushed it back out to as many as ten points. Kobe, relishing his final game in the spotlight, was not discouraged. With 105 seconds remaining he eurostepped through contact to flip in his 50th and 51st points. Michael Jordan was the only 37 year old with a fifty pointer before that moment. He followed that up with a mid-ranger and he followed that up with an off-balance triple – his 49th attempt of the game. Jay-Z was speechless. The Nicholson’s were ecstatic.
And then this. Sheldon Mack overshot a three out of the timeout and D’Angelo Russell picked up the board. Kobe carried the ball over the half as the clock ticked down below 40 seconds. He rounded a physical Jerome Randle screen. He saw the defensive help coming. He pulled up. He shot…
That would be the winning bucket. He iced it from the free throw line after a defensive stop to take his total to 60 points – the sixth time he’s hit that mark in his 20 years. Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Rick Barry are the only other players with 50 FGAs in a game. It was the highest scoring game of the season (Anthony Davis had a 59er). Bryant scored 15 points in the final 185 seconds and he outscored the Jazz – all by himself – 23-21 in the fourth quarter.
It was perfect. For all the times he’s been criticised for not passing, for all the times he’s stepped up in the clutch, for all the times he’s carried his team on his back, for all the times he forced up a stupid shot, for all the games he’s won and all the ones that he didn’t. This was Kobe Bryant’s entire career in snapshot. Of course it was ugly in places and of course there were moments when the hype far outreached the quality on show… but after 48 minutes – after 20 years in fact – it came down to Kobe Bryant with the ball in his hands and it ended with his team winning.
Mamba out.
