I Am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds

What have we done?

What has he done?

31 Shots. 20 free throws. 0 Rebounds. 3 Assists. 2 Turnovers. 1 Block

61.

The number that matters.

I caught up to him at 27. And it was different. Today you’ll read about his greatness, about taking his place in the annals of the Garden. About his brilliance, and the way he yoked this team after the doom and gloom of Bynum’s injury.

And all of them will overlook what he has wrought.

His name is Kobe Bryant. And hell follows with him.

Maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll go back to how he’s been playing. Fun, freewheeling, loving his teammates, ruffling Sasha’s hair, making lightning behind-the-back passes, dicing, slicing, picking his spots. Maybe we’ll see the team leader of a fun and exciting team. I can hate on them all I want for their interior softness and lack of resilience. But it doesn’t change the fact that the Lakers have pushed the boundaries of what’s possible, and Kobe’s redefinition of himself has been a huge part of that.

But this?

This was something else entirely. It was like some sort of mutant form of the old Kobe we used to mock for jacking up shot after shot. He destroyed the Knicks. Floaters. Leaners. Layups. Dunks. And free throw after free throw after free throw. Jordan still sticks out to me, because, come on, I was a kid, and he shot half as many free throws. But they could have let the Knicks hit Kobe with a 2X4 and he likely would have simply banked it off their faces into the net. But there was something resoundly different in it.

There was no joy.

He looked positively weary. Jeffries wraps him up and nearly throws him into the second row on accident and all he does is exhale and walk to the line. He is become death, the destroyer of worlds, and it’s clear to him now.

With this, the tall Spaniard who can score 25 points in a game and still have David Lee make him look like he should be wearing a tutu, with Odom the head case who might fall into paroxysms of laughter at any point, with Ariza who makes such great hustle plays and then throws the ball out of bounds in the backcourt with no pressure on him whatsoever, and Fisher, who defenseses are more and more focusing on to force him into offense outside of a perimeter open shot, and with Bynum, who was frustrating, then brilliant, now injured.

With this, without Bynum, he is out of options.

And you can marvel at the science, at the blinding flash of progress, but recognize that eventually you’ll be in the target radius, and from this?

There may be no witnesses.

Also, the arching, step back, looping fadeaway was positively sickeningly brilliant.

Oster-Tags: kobebryantisgoodatbasketball