The question before the game was whether the Celtics would look at Perkins on the bench and have a greater sense of urgency about winning Game 5, of snuffing out the Lakers and Bryant as quickly as possible. "We need to play with one," Rivers said. "We didn't play with one until the second half the other night. We were fortunate to win the game. . . . We absolutely have to play that way now, from this point forward with the injuries. They're clearly mounting for us. But our team has been pretty good at gathering themselves and covering up for each other."

That conversation came moments before the Celtics went out and fell behind by 19 points. The Lakers stormed out like a defensive team blitzing the quarterback on every single play. They swarmed and attacked, nobody more than Bryant, who had 15 points in the first quarter. Kobe hit three three-pointers, drove to the basket with great force and smiled when he sat down on the bench.

It came as no great surprise, apparently, to coach Phil Jackson, who said, "I felt the veteran players on our team responded really well [to blowing a 24-point lead in Game 4]. . . . The light was back in their eyes, and they're ready to go. . . . One of the things we're trying to do is just keep thoughts focused on what's happening right now. That's the thing you keep warning players about: . . . 'Just be focused here, now, not anything else beyond this, not even the trip back tomorrow to Boston.' "

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

If Jackson had some convincing to do, it wasn't with Bryant. The star and his coach seemed ready for whatever needed to be done to get the rest of the Lakers going. "If they're aggressive and energized, and playing the kind of basketball that we need to play, then he can sit back and be a facilitator. If they need [him] in attack mode with the ball, then that's where he's going to take the bull by the horns and start playing ball the way he can, and only he can."

In other words, Kobe was going to try to do it all, be it all, score and pass. He did that successfully in Game 5, brilliantly in fact, to send the series back to Boston, where the Celtics have the lead but the Lakers have Kobe. Maybe 3-2 isn't that big a deficit after all.

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