Michael Ventre

LOS ANGELES - In one sense, this is nothing new. Kobe Bryant has been hitting shots throughout his career under the kind of pressure that turns hunks of coal into diamonds. He has three NBA championship rings, and he didn’t buy them on eBay, nor was he a lucky bystander while greater players seized the day. He is already considered one of basketball’s fearless leaders.

But what occurred Sunday afternoon at Staples Center may have forever altered the Kobe paradigm. By canning a running lay-up with 0.7 left in regulation against the Phoenix Suns, then drilling a fadeaway jumper at the overtime buzzer for a 99-98 Los Angeles Lakers victory, he ushered in a brave new world, one in which adjustments to his game and perspective have finally brought him to the Michael Jordan promised land for real.

After he won the game, he pumped his arm and gyrated, and the resemblance was uncanny. The comparison has been made often before, yet this time it finally felt right.

With a 3-1 lead and heading into a possible series-clinching Game 5 Tuesday night in Phoenix, Bryant finally has what he envisioned during the leadup to the Shaq-Kobe divorce.

He is The Man. But he also has trusted associates around him, a magician of a head coach on the bench and his team in the thick of the NBA playoffs.

This isn’t the exact path Jordan traveled, but the important signposts are the same. With Jordan, it was a slow climb toward discovery, then six titles. With Kobe, it was three championships early, followed by a season last year of agony and reflection, and now a realization that individual heroics and team play are not mutually exclusive.

“I was telling the guys earlier when we were in the locker room,” Bryant explained afterward, “I have played a lot of playoff basketball and I have never had a game quite like this. With our backs against the wall, seemingly out of it, and us just battling back and getting this ‘W.’

“I told them we matured about 10 to 15 years today. We did a lot of growing up in this game.”

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On Sunday, Michael Jordan might not have been the first thought of most observers when it came to Bryant, at least for much of the game. Kobe got into foul trouble and played only nine minutes of the first half. Although he finished with a respectable 24 points, he only had 16 before the high-degree-of-difficulty floater — after a Smush Parker steal of MVP Steve Nash — that tied the game at the end of regulation.

He was human. But when it was time to act like Jordan, he did an incredible impersonation.

“He is amazing,” noted teammate Luke Walton. “The NBA is so competitive and coming down the stretch knowing you have Kobe on your team, you know that you are never really out of a ballgame.”

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