When it comes to Kobe's shot-making, impossible is nothing.

Time was winding down on the shot clock, game clock and — though it wasn’t quite certain yet — the Phoenix Suns’ season. Grant Hill, desperate to keep his season alive while fully aware of the dangers presented by guarding the most-feared late-game killer in the entire NBA, gave Kobe Bryant not a single inch to breathe.

Not that it mattered.

Hill stayed glued to Kobe as basketball’s Mariano Rivera dribbled once to his right, picked up his dribble, gave a quick upfake and finally released an impossible fadeaway with both his feet standing on the three-point arc and Hill breathing down the front of his neck. The ridiculous attempt would have been more than enough reason for a coach to substitute a lesser player out of the game, but for Kobe it was just part of the plan. The jumper went down, Kobe tapped Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry on his rump, and the Black Mamba’s legend ascended one more rung.

But why does he always have to take such a tough shot?

Watching Kobe Bryant play basketball is a lesson in shot-making. He spins with perfect footwork, fakes with the utmost precision and miraculously keeps his balance and concentration no matter how many directions his body is moving or how many hands are in his face. But still, no matter how breathtaking it can be to watch Kobe send yet another improbable shot splitting through the nets, the question remains: Why don’t any shots come easy for Kobe? Why doesn’t he get many layups? Why does he always seem to settle for contested fadeaway jumpers?

The easy answer would be that Kobe has more people guarding him during crunch-time than Barack Obama did during his Inauguration. No team wants to let Kobe get off a good look as the game’s seconds wind down, so they send waves of defenders at him. Kobe wants to take the last shot himself, almost regardless of what the defense does, so teams use that to their advantage. Kobe ain’t gonna pass, so coaches load up defenders to stop him. Everywhere Kobe looks, there’s a help defender waiting. It’s difficult to find an easy shot against a regiment of defenders, so THAT’S why Kobe doesn’t get many good looks. But that would only be the easy answer. Every star has two or three guys running at him during crunch-time, but not every star routinely takes such impossible shots.

The more difficult answer? I’m not sure I even know it. I’ve watched countless games during which Kobe seems to shoot nothing but contested jumpshots, but I don’t know why he settles. Is it that he doesn’t have the same athleticism he once did? Doesn’t want to waste too much energy searching for a good shot when he can hit all the bad ones? Is it really just all the help defense? Whatever it is, Kobe’s shot selection perplexes me.

In comparing Kobe to Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson once said something along the lines of, “Michael gets easier shots, but Kobe is a better bad-shot maker.” And Kobe is certainly that, perhaps the best bad-shot maker ever and definitely the best bad-shot maker I’ve ever seen. Good defense hardly seems to bother Kobe. Hands in his face, hands in his eyes even (shoutout to Shane Battier), don’t seem to effect Kobe the way they should. No matter the circumstance, Kobe can get off a make-able shot. Of course, “make-able” and “good shot” are two completely different entities.

Kobe’s ability to make bad shots is part of the reason everyone believes Kobe is the most clutch human being on the planet when all the statistical evidence in the world tells us otherwise. (Don’t get me wrong — when Kobe has the ball tonight in Game 5 with the clock winding down, I’ll be shivering in my boots. But when every stat I’ve ever seen says Kobe is not the best clutch player in the game, I tend to believe the stats.) We believe Kobe is the most clutch player, the best closer, because he has so many — sooooooo many — impossible buzzer-beaters and clutch shots under his belt. When Kobe hits a clutch shot, you remember it. The bank-job against Miami, the aforementioned facial of Grant Hill, the back-breaker over Ray Allen’s outstretched fingers to beat the Celtics — Kobe leaves an indelible mark whenever he hits a game-winner or clutch shot because every shot he takes seems, and I wish there were another word for it so I didn’t have to keep repeating the same one, impossible. When those shots do go down, he’s Michael Jordan disguised as Kobe Bryant. When they don’t go down, they weren’t supposed to go down in the first place — they were too impossible to begin with.

As Slate’s phenomenal piece on Kobe’s clutchness quotes a David Berri email, Lebron James is a more effective crunch-time player than Kobe. “”Most importantly, [James] improved with respect to shooting efficiency and rebounds,” Berri wrote. “Kobe also improved by lesser amounts with respect to rebounds and free throws. But he also got worse with respect to shooting efficiency from the field, assists, blocked shots, and steals.

“Basically each player tries to do more in the clutch. But LeBron is better at turning this effort into results.”

Yet we don’t see it that way. We see Lebron failing while Kobe rises. We see Kobe making impossible shots while Lebron sits at home watching on TV. We see Kobe as, undoubtedly, the league’s best closer. We see all those impossible makes, all those highlights, every time we think about Kobe’s clutchness.

But the same thing that makes us remember Kobe’s highlights is perhaps his biggest fault as a player. Kobe takes tough shots all the time, and while he can hit those better than anybody in today’s NBA and possibly anybody who’s ever played the game of basketball, tough shots are more likely to miss than good ones. Kobe’s inability to manufacture easy shots — or unwillingness, whatever it may be — is what has allowed the Celtics to slow him down in the fourth quarter this series.

Over the past two games, Kobe is 3-12 in the final stanza and has been unable to find any easy shots or get to the free throw line. He is now shooting 40.8% for the series, and I can count on one hand the number of easy looks he’s gotten. At this point, it seems like Kobe doesn’t even try to get easy shots. He’s hit so many bad ones in his career that he’s perfectly content with launching 21-foot fadeaways. To be fair, he makes an ungodly amount of them. I just don’t understand why everything has to be so difficult.

Some credit should go to the Celtics defense, but it isn’t only against the Celtics that Kobe takes tough shots. He does it all the time, against everyone. He gets more easy looks against every other team than he does against the C’s, but half his shot attempts would still get a lesser player benched or, even worse, cut. He makes a lot of them, sure, but so many shots Kobe takes are so, so, very, very tough.

And that is the conundrum about Kobe Bryant. He makes the impossible look easy, but he doesn’t make anything easy. He has unending talent to make any shot one could ever fathom, but for some reason that evades my grasp he doesn’t get many easy shots. It’s the ability to make impossible shots that sets Kobe apart from every player in the NBA, but it’s also the one thing you could say might be holding him back.

When Kobe catches the ball tonight in the fourth quarter, he’ll almost inevitably shoot a tough fadeaway with a Celtic draped all over him, so close that Kobe will be able to smell his defender’s breath. It’ll be a bad shot, one that would make a high school coach shake his head, scream, “NOOOO!!!!” and want to strangle his player. But that’s just how it is with Kobe Bryant. It’s what you have to accept about his game. It’s his mind-boggling genius that allows him to make those shots, shots no other man alive would dare attempt.

And that shot I told you about, the one he’ll undoubtedly take in tonight’s fourth quarter, the one he’ll shoot with defenders in his shorts? Unless that shot clangs off the rim, I’ll know for certain it’s going down.

C'mon, Mark. Even WE know better than that.

The LA Times keeps churning out doozies. (Mark Heisler, LA Times)

Superstars are made on the hallowed parquet floor as when Michael Jordan dropped 63 on the Celtics in the 1986 playoffs and Larry Bird called him “God disguised as Michael Jordan.”

This would make this “God, disguised as Derek Fisher.”

Sorry Heisler, but I think it was more like “Derek Fisher disguised as a really good point guard.”

When someone does something so special, so great, there’s no need to use hyperbole to describe it. Had Heisler described exactly what had happened, the piece would have been a terrific one. Just look at Bill Plaschke’s piece or Adrian Wojnarowski’s piece for an example of how describing the truth can be far, far better than using hyperbole. Fisher had done something great, so all Heisler had to do to make his own piece great was to explain exactly what Fisher had done.

Instead he went THERE, using the comparison to Michael Jordan, who had been compared to God — thus indirectly comparing Derek Fisher to God himself. Not exactly the best comparison, if you ask me. When Michael Jordan had been compared to God, he had scored 63 points and singlehandedly kept his team in the game. When Derek Fisher was compared to God, he had scored 16 points and made a few clutch shots so that his team wouldn’t finish blowing a 17-point lead. See the difference?

Fisher was spectacular, don’t get me wrong. He just didn’t inspire anyone to think of God. Unless, like me, they were thinking, “There mustn’t be a God if He allows Derek Fisher to hit so many damn shots in an NBA Finals game,” or simply, “God damn it! Fisher again???”

How will the Finals alter KG's legacy?

This year’s NBA Finals is about more than one championship. Just listen to Paul Pierce:

“A lot of guys have won one,” he said. “But all the great Celtics have won two, at least. I want to be mentioned in that group.”

That this series is between the Celtics and the Lakers is only one aspect of the rich history involved. Individual legacies are on the line. Teams’ reputations are at stake. History is in the balance, everywhere you’ll look on the Staples Center floor tonight.

Winning another ring will prove the Celtics are no one-hit wonder, will validate their run two years ago. Raising the 18th banner this season would put these Celtics on the verge of a mini-dynasty and mark these Celtics as one of the great teams in NBA history. It would put an asterisk on the Lakers’ title last year, one that would read “*Kevin Garnett was unhealthy or Boston would have three-peated.”

Lose, though, and the Celtics will be like the 2004 Detroit Pistons — good enough to win one title but not great enough to come back for more. Strong enough to win one and challenge for more, but not enough to break through another time. Yeah, the Celtics could come back next year and change all that, but there’s no promise of next year. In fact, and I apologize for my buzz kill, there probably won’t be a next year — at least a next year filled with another postseason run that lasts until June. So much is prepared to change this offseason — Ray Allen is a free agent, Doc Rivers might not come back, the old all get a little older — that nothing is certain beyond this series. This could be the Big Three-era Celtics’ last chance to win a title, last chance to cement their places in NBA history.

A ring is enough motivation, sure, but this series provides so much more significance than “just” a single title. Pierce, more than any other Celtic, has a lot on the line this series. He will go down as one of the great Celtics of all time regardless of the outcome of these seven games, but what happens if he wins a second title this season and — who knows? –maybe even wins another Finals MVP award? How high will he climb the Celtics’ pantheon then, with two championships and two Finals MVPs in his back pocket? It’s too late to catch Bird or Russell, but could Havlicek and Cousy be in his sights?

On the other side of the court stares Kobe Bryant, jaw jutted out and finger as crooked as Senator Clay Davis. If you’ve read a recent article comparing Bryant to Michael Jordan you aren’t alone. Comparing the two greats seems to be all the rage these days, after Kobe’s delightful two series that put the Lakers in the Finals. As stars fall from the playoffs all around him Kobe is peeking, proving himself greater than Lebron, greater than any challenger in the contemporary NBA. Jerry West called Kobe the greatest Laker ever, greater even than Magic Johnson. Kobe has proven himself an assassin time after time, but the outburst of support he is receiving now is greater than he’s received at any other time of his career. He deserves it, too — he’s the defending champion and has again made the postseason his personal highlight show.

But what if he loses to the Celtics, again, for the second time in three years? What if Kobe’s one title as the best player on his team (Shaq was the best player during the first three Kobe championships and won Finals MVP in all three years) is forever marred by that asterisk I mentioned earlier, the one that mentions that Boston would have won the title had Kevin Garnett been healthy? Kobe would go from being the greatest Laker ever to the superstar who could get it done against anyone but the Celtics. His one solo ring tarnished, Kobe wouldn’t be challenging Jordan anymore — instead, he’d once again be relegated to struggling to find his rightful place in the annals of NBA history. Sure Kobe would still have four championships, but with three of them coming as Shaq’s right-hand man and the fourth coming as a gift from the injury gods, none would place him anywhere near Jordan or even Magic. Without beating the Celtics, without beating the most powerful opponent of his era, Kobe can’t be considered with those two.

Kobe will deny seeing the importance in the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, but you can bet anything he realizes his legacy is on the line starting tonight. Kobe will end up one of the NBA’s greatest of all-time, but — as they have most of his career — people will find a way to question him should he again lose to the Celtics. He’s finally reached the point where people are ready to revere him, ready to praise his impossible abilities and endless obsession with winning, but it could all slip through that mangled finger of his if he loses to the Celtics and again underperforms against Gang Green. Should Kobe lose to Boston again, suddenly some of the doubts about Kobe and his place in history would come flooding back in.

Kobe and Pierce aren’t the only ones with reputations and legacies on the line either. Garnett’s reputation as a big-game player is always in question. Rondo has a chance to further solidify himself as a rising superstar. Ray Allen can cement his reputation as an big-shot kind of guy. Ron Artest can reverse the error of many of his former ways. Pau Gasol can once and for all shred the soft label, and Andrew Bynum can too. Derek Fisher can build on his growing label as a crunch-time killer. It’s the Finals now, the big time, the time when legends are made.

20 years from now nobody will remember that the Celtics beat the NBA’s top two teams to get to the NBA Finals, but everyone will sure as hell remember what happened once the Celtics got there. They’ll remember the hero, the goat, and the moments; the highlight dunks and game-winning or game-tying jumpers; the championship celebration, too; but they won’t remember what else happened in this postseason.

20 years from now, I won’t remember who was the Celtics leading scorer from 2010…

But I’ll sure as hell be able to tell you if he beat the goddamn Lakers.

Normally we only do the Morning Walkthrough. But this is the Finals, damn it!, and there’s quite a bit of increased coverage today. I can’t write individual posts about ALL the great articles today, can I?

1. Jerry West is drinking some serious Kobe Kool-Aid. Wouldn’t you just love if the Celtics made West do a 180? (Sports Radio Interviews, via FoxSports Radio)

“He’s playing the best basketball I have ever seen him play to be honest with you. When he shoots shots a lot of people would probably think they are bad shots. For him, he is not only creative, but he is a shot maker. Some people are creative, but they’re not shot makers. He can make tough shots. He just seems to will the ball in the basket. I’ve never seen him play better… At this time of year, people talk about adjustments that people make. The adjustments that people make are not really the telling part of it. Your great players, this is their time to shine. You can’t really run your offense. After the first couple of games, everyone will be waiting on everyone. The team that has the best ability to beat people off the dribble and be creative will be successful. There’s no better player that I’ve ever seen than him… He’s the greatest Laker player that we have ever seen.”

2. Jason Whitlock isn’t sipping on the same Kool-Aid as West. (Fox Sports)

Now Jerry West starts popping off his mouth. Now I have a vested interest in Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo stopping Kobe from getting his fifth title, which would give The Closer the same number of rings as Magic. Now I may be forced to crank out a few more vicious columns lambasting Bryant and ridiculing anyone who lumps the moody gunner in the same category as Magic and Larry.

Damn it. All of my unfair negative energy has been directed at LeBron James.

Jordan and Bird’s assault on Magic’s place in history transpired in two different decades. I hated Bird in the ‘80s and Jordan in the ‘90s. My hatred of Iverson peaked in the first half of the ‘00s.

I don’t need the hassle of disparaging two NBA legends during the first half of the ‘10s. I’ll risk sounding like a cranky old man who believes everything was better in the old days.

I need the Celtics to get Kobe off my lawn!

3. I’m still trying to find out what “choking in a good way” means. (Marc Spears, Yahoo!)

“Everyone wants to choke [Rondo] at times,” Celtics center Kendrick Perkins said, “but in a good way.”

The Celtics say Rondo has matured this season. And while he hasn’t stopped talking, his play also has spoken volumes.

“He might be the most arrogant guy on our team, and nobody really knows,” Perkins said. “He has a fiery edge. That’s always been him in a good way. Really, when he gets on the court he thinks he’s the best player on the court.”

Said Rondo: “I’m strong-willed. I’m a leader more than a follower. If I disagree with something, I’m going to say or voice my opinion. That’s just how I am. Either you like it, or you don’t.”

4. Kobe wants more and more titles, and he doesn’t think the Lakers’ ’08 team was good enough. (Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo!)

The biggest thing for Bryant now: Don’t leave titles on the table. Gobble them all. That’ll be his biggest regret. Bryant and the Lakers have the Celtics again now, a chance for vindication over that 39-point obliteration to end the ’08 Finals. Jerry West never beat the Celtics, nor did Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor. For all the discussion about Bryant chasing Jordan as the greatest player in history, remember this: In Los Angeles, some will always consider Magic Johnson the greatest Laker of all. Jerry West says it’s Kobe, but that’s a debate that’ll swing Bryant’s way once he takes down the Celtics, too.

As for two years ago, Bryant says simply, “We were just not good enough. That team we had was just not good enough. We had players who were skilled, but we couldn’t match up with them. I mean, they chumped us. They played tougher than us. They wanted it more. And on top of all that, they were just better.”

5. The origins of the Beat L.A. chant. (Boston Globe)

You’ll be hearing the simple yet powerful “Beat LA!, Beat LA!, Beat LA!” battle cry all over New England now that the Celtics-Lakers rivalry has been renewed for the Finals.

For most fans, the chant is reminiscent of the playoff games in the old Boston Garden in the 1980s, when Magic Johnson squared off against Larry Bird and the Celtics and Lakers dominated the NBA.

But that’s not when the chant took off in Boston. It actually started as a chant supporting the Philadelphia 76ers.

With 26 seconds to go in Game 7 of the 1982 Eastern Conference finals at the old Garden and the Sixers pulling away from the soon-to-be ex-champs, the crowd began to chant the now-famous phrase. Philadelphia, after all, would be facing the hated Lakers in the NBA Finals.

6. Kobe Bryant will spend time defending Rajon Rondo this series… but for entirely different reasons than he did in 2008. (Kevin Arnovitz, TrueHoop)

Phil Jackson said Wednesday that he expects Bryant to spend some time guarding Rondo. In 2008, the rationale for this assignment is the freedom it affords Bryant to use his instincts as an untethered ad hoc defender in the half court. The Lakers challenge Rondo to shoot as close as 15 feet and to finish at the rim against Odom. Rondo doesn’t fare well. His mechanics are jerky and when he’s able to break through the defense and get to the paint, he rushes his finishes.

Two years later, Bryant will get the defensive assignment for entirely different reasons. Rondo has emerged as the rudder of the Celtics’ offense. His penetration, orchestration of the pick-and-roll and playmaking — even in a crowded half court — generates dozens of quality looks for the Celtics per game. Rondo is also infinitely more confident as a shooter and finisher. Defensively, Rondo is the head of the snake for Boston. His lanky limbs and ability to deny entry passes help snarl the flow of opposing offenses and make it that much easier for the rest of the Celtics to crowd the paint.

7. And lastly, my least favorite picture of the day. I know — I just know! — Thibodeau either spit on his hand or failed to wash it after his previous poop or something. (Via Ball Don’t Lie)

Doc: "You mean he made no subs? No subs?" Thibs: "But, but, but... it was all about matchups." Doc: "Okay, Shooter. Run the picket fence next time, dude."

Does Jackie MacMullan ever write anything that isn’t completely unbelievable in every sense of the word? She’s like the ‘roided-up Barry Bonds of writers — I expect her to hit a home run every time, and most of the time she does.

Today she killed her piece on Tom Thibodeau, absolutely murdered it in cold blood. And get this, Thibs says he didn’t freeze up when he forgot to make a substitution the last 18 minutes of that Hawks game way back when — he simply knew the matchups too well for his own good. (Boston Globe)

So what happened in that Jan. 11 game? Contrary to those who suspected Thibodeau was “unprepared,’’ it was his intimate knowledge of the fourth-quarter matchups that stopped him from making a move. The Hawks had sent point guard Mike Bibby to the bench and left Jamal Crawford to cover the point. Usually Bibby returns for the stretch run.

“The one guy I wanted to get back in the game was Eddie [House],’’ Thibodeau explained. “I was waiting for Bibby to check back in, but it didn’t happen.

“I knew I was taking a chance. We were shorthanded that night. Kevin [Garnett] and Rasheed [Wallace] were both out.

“I had studied the fourth-quarter matchups and I knew Jamal Crawford would be trouble for us. If you create a bad matchup, it can cost you 8-10 points.

“When we lost, I knew it would open me up to criticism. Things didn’t work out — but they could have.

“I just don’t worry about that stuff.’’

According to Thibodeau, the Atlanta loss has not come up in any of his head coaching interviews. Van Gundy said he was stunned by how many people jumped to conclusions following that one game.

“In retrospect,’’ Van Gundy said, “Tibs probably should have played the regular rotation but on a shorter lease — not because what he chose to do was wrong, but because it was so scrutinized and took on a life of its own. All of a sudden people were portraying him to be some robotic coaching drone, which is not who he is.

“Look, anyone who thinks there’s no learning curve when you slide over to [the head coach’s] seat is crazy.

“I can only guarantee you one thing: Any mistakes Tibs will make won’t be because of lack of preparation or because of a ‘deer in the headlights’ situation. Nobody cares more about getting it right.’’

I don’t know about for you guys, but it almost makes that coaching decision worse for me that Thibodeau knew exactly what he was doing. I think Thibs is a fantastic coach, but it would have been way better if he’d just been like Shooter from Hoosiers, drunk stiff on the bench and freezing up at the wrong time (R.I.P. Dennis Hopper). I mean, I don’t care what the matchups are, you’ve simply got to get your players some rest. I don’t care if Jamal Crawford was Michael Jordan, you still have to put some damn subs in. If the same five guys play 18 minutes in a row there’s something wrong with the coaching decision, even if Scal is the sixth man.

Another interesting quote from the piece? “Those closest to Thibodeau know he likes cars, music, and women.”

No offense to Thibs or anything, he’s a hell of a coach and all, but it’s a little tough to imagine him as much of a ladies man.

Michael: "Youngster, you'll never be as good as I was."

Can we please put the Kobe-Jordan comparisons to rest already? This is the first of a few that I’ve read.

Via Mike Wise, Washington Post:

If we’re going to have the conversation, we might as well go to one of the primary sources, no?

Greatest of all time, you or Michael?

“That’s hard for me,” Kobe Bryant said, walking to another team bus after another virtuoso performance in late May. “I’m still young. Our careers are so different.”

But what if you win a championship this season and one or two more rings before you retire? That would equal or surpass Michael Jordan’s haul of titles. Don’t we have to start talking about it?

“You can, but I don’t know if it’s fair to anyone,” Kobe said. “I mean, I came off the bench early in my career. We had such different beginnings, you know? And then I played with a much different team about halfway through my career. You almost have to judge my career in two phases.” [...]

Yet for the bulk of their careers, they both also had Phil Jackson, the greatest coach in the game.

“He’s comparable [to Jordan],” Jackson said of Bryant on Saturday night in the desert outside the coach’s room at U.S. Airways Arena. “He’s got the same drive and determination.” [...]

But the entire debate is really immaterial in some ways, isn’t it? Because in the G.O.A.T. argument, the problem for Bryant isn’t about production — it’s about perception.

The unfortunate truth for Kobe is he can never be Michael because he isn’t thought of as likable as Jordan, also the greatest commercial pitchman ever for an athlete. Even if he tied or surpassed Jordan in championships and postseason magical moments, Bryant’s public missteps — the prideful ego war with Shaquille O’Neal early in his career, the sexual assault charge eventually dropped in Colorado and his desire to leave the Lakers only a few years ago — will always be held against him.

If nothing else, Wise’s column and others like it display the fickle nature of sports media.  No more than a month ago, as Kobe struggled to score against an Oklahoma City Thunder team with some serious defensive chops, we wondered if Kobe Bryant was on the decline.  We thought all those damn games he had played, all those miles on his formerly tighted legs, had caught up to him. It seemed Kobe wasn’t just hitting a rough patch but running on fumes. The fumes of a great career, undoubtedly, but fumes that would never allow Kobe to touch Michael Jordan’s undeniable perch as the league’s best player.

Kobe finished a distant third in this season’s MVP ballot and had been surpassed as the world’s best basketball player in the eyes of just about every unbiased fan or analyst. The NBA had become Lebron’s world. Kobe was just playing in it.

Now, a spirited Kobe rejuvenation and two Michael-esque series’ later, people want to restart the comparisons between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan? There is no proper reason for it, other than people being easily persuaded by evidence that should amount to just about nothing.

Kobe had a couple great series’, there can be no denying that. He was terrific and wonderful — brilliant even. He hit shots that no other human being would even fathom shooting, shots that James Naismith never would have dreamed about when he invented the game with two peach baskets, and Kobe did some of it with grown, athletic, 6’8″ men all but plastered to his shooting hand. He made all the clutch plays down the stretch, even bringing an opposing coach to nervous laughter with his heavenly shot-making. He took his team to the Finals, while Lebron, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant sat idly at home. Kobe certainly made the case that he could possibly still be considered the greatest player in today’s NBA.

But ever? Child, please. Kobe scored 32.9 points per game against the Jazz and Suns, and it was wonderful basketball. Don’t get me wrong, I admire everything he did — everything his done throughout his whole career, really. But the Jazz and Suns were tailor-made — tailor-made! — to allow Bryant to score. The Jazz defended Kobe with Wes Matthews, an undrafted rookie standing only 6’5″. What did Bryant do? He took him to the post and abused him. Matthews didn’t stand a chance against Bryant in the post but, the thing is, he wasn’t supposed to. He was an outsized, undrafted rookie for Christ’s sake. And Kobe is Kobe, which means he’s outstanding at basketball. But it also means he’s not Michael Jordan.

Back to those 32.9 points per game Kobe scored in the past two series’ combined (against Wes Matthews and that miserable Suns defense ranked 23rd in the NBA), that number would be Kobe’s highest average in a postseason if he could sustain it for the entire playoffs. (His highest as it stands now? 32.8 ppg, in 2006-2007.) Do you know what Jordan averaged for his entire postseason career? 33.4 ppg. More than Kobe’s ever averaged in a single postseason, more than Kobe’s magnificent stretch during the past two series’. In fact, only as a rookie did Jordan ever average less than 30 ppg in the playoffs. Even then, his average of 29.3 ppg was well higher than Kobe’s career postseason average (25.4 ppg).

Granted, scoring isn’t everything, so how about we check into winning. Michael Jordan won six titles, Kobe already has four. On the surface, it looks like Kobe could surpass Jordan in winning. But examine it a little closer and Kobe didn’t win a title as the best player on his team until last year. That makes it one true championship for Kobe. You can’t take the first three rings away, but those rings belong to Shaq. Kobe was nothing but Pippen to Shaq’s Jordan. Kobe had never won a Finals MVP, until last year. On the other hand, Jordan was the Finals MVP on all six of his championship teams. And hell, if Jordan hadn’t retired twice at the pinnacle of the sport he might have been a nine- or 10-time champion. And I can promise that if he had won more championships, Jordan would have also won just as many more Finals MVP trophies. He was always the best player on his team, always the NBA’s most dangerous player. He never, ever left any doubt that he was the league’s best player and best winner.

But Kobe has. At times, he’s disappeared. Remember Game 7 against Phoenix in 2006? People say Kobe never would have gone missing like Lebron against the Celtics, but those people forgot that Kobe already has. With his team’s season on the line, Kobe lost all aggression. He stopped going to the hoop, stopped taking shots. The NBA.com recap read in part, “After Leandro Barbosa helped the Phoenix Suns to a big lead, Kobe Bryant decided to do nothing about it. [...] Bryant tried to keep the Lakers in it in the first half by scoring 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting. [...] But in a puzzling disappearing act, Bryant deferred to his teammates in the second half Saturday, taking just three shots and scoring one point on a technical free throw. ‘I can’t really give you an answer why he didn’t shoot in the second half,’ [Raja] Bell said. ‘Whatever happened we’ve got bigger fish to fry now.’”

Does that sound like anything you would have ever read about Jordan? I didn’t think so. What about Kobe’s performance in the Finals in 2008? 25.7 ppg, only 40% shooting, and a series loss. Jordan never went down so meekly. In fact, in the Finals, Jordan never went down at all. He was a perfect 6-0 in NBA Finals series’.

Kobe gets painted as a ruthless competitor who will stop at nothing to become the world’s greatest basketball player, who will stop at nothing to win games. From what I’ve seen he is, if not quite that, as close as it gets in the NBA. He’s a winner, a competitor, and he has the most polished and accomplished game of any active player in the world. But I’ve got a problem with the media and how they portray his competitiveness.

Kobe destroys the Suns and it’s because he was upset about losing to them in 2006 and 2007. There was nothing more than a whisper about the Suns being 23rd on defense, the worst defensive team in the playoffs. Kobe didn’t score so many points against Phoenix because his matchup was a good one and the Suns’ defensive schemes poor, he scored so many points because he was still mad at Raja Bell. My question is, if he was so upset about what the Suns did to him back then, why didn’t he do something about it when it happened? Why’d he go out with nothing more than a whimper, scoring only a single damn point in Game 7? Why not get mad about it then, when he could still do something about it?

Now Kobe is being portrayed as a fuming superstar ready to extract revenge on the Boston Celtics. But again, I ask, why didn’t he do something about it when it happened? Why does it take two years of stewing about a loss to make Kobe’s competitiveness come out?  Wasn’t he just as competitive back then, when he was laying a Finals-sized egg against the Celtics? Shouldn’t that fire have translated into success back then?

The truth is, uber-competitiveness only takes you so far when you’re overmatched. The Celtics’ defense was superior to any defense Kobe had ever seen, and he simply wasn’t up to the task. He wasn’t exactly stopped, but he was contained. He was held under his averages, shot a poor percentage and couldn’t earn himself a ring. Jordan never went out like that, and that’s not a biased opinion. It’s a fact. 6-0. I’ve said it before, but it warrants re-mentioning: Jordan won six championships and lost in the Finals zero times. He won the Finals MVP in each of those seasons.  He was undeniably the league’s best, year after year.

Back to Kobe now. If Kobe Bryant leads his Los Angeles Lakers to another championship, he will again be hailed as the world’s greatest player — he will again take his seat as the NBA’s alpha dog. And he’ll deserve it, I admit: If Kobe Bryant wins a championship this season, against the Boston Celtics, and plays well doing it, he should be considered the NBA’s best player.

But if comparisons keep being made between Kobe and Jordan, Kobe won’t only be the world’s greatest basketball player.

He’ll also be its most overrated.