ELEVEN RINGS Part 29

Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.

CHINESE PROVERB

This was the moment we'd all been waiting for. After nine months and 104 games, the 200910 season came down to this: a rematch with the Boston Celtics in game 7 of the champions.h.i.+p finals. As we arrived at the Staples Center that afternoon, there was no doubt that the players were plotting revenge for the debacle that had taken place two years earlier in the TD Garden.

It was bad enough that the Celtics had humiliated us on the court in the final game of the 2008 finals. They'd done it in cla.s.sic Boston style, dunking coach Doc Rivers with Gatorade before the clock ran out so that we had to sit on the bench in misery while workers mopped the floor and a stadium full of besotted hometown fans screamed invectives at us. Then, when we thought it was all over, we had to endure a postgame ride from h.e.l.l through an unruly mob determined to upend our team bus. This was the nightmare that had stuck in our minds for two years.

If it had been any other team, we might have been able to laugh it off. But this was the Celtics, the team that had haunted the Lakers ever since 1959 when Boston swept the then-Minneapolis Lakers in four games to win the NBA champions.h.i.+p. The Celtics were so dominant in the 1960s that Jerry West stopped wearing anything green because it reminded him of the frustration the Lakers had endured during that decade.

The most embarra.s.sing defeat came in 1969 when an aging Celtics team, led by Bill Russell in his final year as player-coach, bounced back from a 32 deficit to s.n.a.t.c.h victory from the Lakers on their home court. The Lakers had been so confident going into game 7 that owner Jack Kent Cooke had thousands of purple and gold balloons hung from the ceiling of the Forum, ready to be released during the postgame celebration. Alas, that was not to be. With less than a minute to go, West knocked the ball away on defense, right into the hands of Don Nelson, who tossed up a shot from the free-throw line that hit the back of the rim, bounced high into the air and fell miraculously back into the hoop to put the Celtics ahead for good, 108106.

West, who played brilliantly throughout the series and was the first and only player from a losing team ever to be named finals MVP, was sh.e.l.lshocked. "I didn't think it was fair that you could give so much and maybe play until there was nothing left in your body to give, and you couldn't win," he told author Roland Lazenby years later. "I don't think people really understand that trauma a.s.sociated with losing. I don't think people realize how miserable you can be, and me in particular. I was terrible. It got to the point with me that I wanted to quit basketball."

West didn't quit, though. Three years later he finally won a champions.h.i.+p ring, not against the Celtics, but against my team, the Knicks. Still, the Celtics' curse hovered over the franchise like an undropped balloon until the mid-'80s, when the "Showtime" Lakers beat Boston two out of three times in the finals. The rivalry between the two teams was such an important part of Lakers lore that Magic Johnson once revealed that he cheered for Boston when the team wasn't playing against L.A. because, as writer Michael Wilbon wrote, "only the Celtics know how it feels to sit atop the basketball world for the franchise's entire existence."

History was not on our side going into game 7 in 2010. Over the decades the Lakers had faced the Celtics four times in finals series that came down to seven games and had lost every time. But on this go-round we were playing at home, and we'd beaten the Celtics decisively, 8967, two days earlier in game 6. We also had a few more weapons in our a.r.s.enal than in 2008, notably center Andrew Bynum, who had been sidelined with a knee injury that year. And we'd acquired forward Ron Artest, one of the best defensive players in the league. My main worry was Boston's Rasheed Wallace, who was filling in for injured center Kendrick Perkins. Wallace wasn't as strong as Perkins on defense, but he was a formidable offensive threat who had done serious damage to us in the past. I wasn't taking anything for granted.

By Lakers' standards, 200910 had been a fairly uneventful season. The biggest setback took place before the season began when Trevor Ariza, who had played a big role in the 2009 champions.h.i.+p run, left the team to become a free agent. Trevor was a quick, daring defender who often ignited our fast-breaking offense by making steals or forcing turnovers. He also was a clutch outside shooter from the corners and other points on the floor. But during the off-season, negotiations between Trevor's agent and the Lakers stalled, and Mitch Kupchak started talking seriously with Artest, whose contract with the Rockets was ending. Before the deal was complete, however, Ron announced on Twitter that he was joining the Lakers. Baffled by this turn of events, Trevor signed with Houston as a free agent and was later traded to New Orleans.

What I liked about Artest was his size (six feet seven inches, 260 pounds), his strength, and his lockdown defensive play. Ron, who had recently been voted the "toughest" player in the NBA in a survey of general managers, was forceful and crafty enough to neutralize strong, mobile forwards such as Boston's Paul Pierce. But Ron could be erratic on offense and wasn't as speedy as Trevor, which meant we'd have to s.h.i.+ft our quick, fast-breaking attack into a slower, half-court offense.

I also had concerns about Ron's unpredictability. He was best known for the wild brouhaha he took part in as a Pacer during a 2004 game against the Pistons at Auburn Hills. The fight broke out after Ron fouled Ben Wallace as he was driving to the basket, and Wallace retaliated by shoving him in the chest. Midway through the brawl, a Detroit fan threw a cup at Ron and he charged into the stands and started whaling away, which resulted in a seventy-three-game suspension, the longest in NBA history not related to drugs or gambling. (Wallace and other players were also penalized, but not as severely as Ron.)

During our series against Houston in the 2008 playoffs, Ron, then playing for the Rockets, got ejected from game 2 after getting into a clash with Kobe over a rebound. He also missed two team buses en route to the Staples Center for game 7, and caught a third bus-transporting Houston management-wearing only his sweats.

Ron grew up in New York's rough Queensbridge projects, and sports tattoos of a Q on his right leg and a B on his left to remind him of his roots. He remembers hearing gun shots while playing at the Twelfth Street courts. And he once witnessed a young man getting killed during a game at a local recreation center when a brawl broke out and one of the players tore off a leg of the scorer's table and stabbed him with it. "I'm still ghetto," Ron once told the Houston Chronicle. "That's not going to change. I'm never going to change my culture."

Basketball was Ron's salvation. When he was twelve, he was good enough to play AAU ball. He joined Lamar Odom and another future NBA star, Elton Brand, on the Brooklyn Queens Express, a team that went 67-1 one summer. All three players went on to success in high school and college, and were selected in the first round of the 1999 draft. The Bulls chose Brand and Ron, as the first and sixteenth picks overall, respectively, and the Clippers took Lamar as the fourth pick overall. Since 1999 Artest had played for four other teams-the Bulls, Pacers, the Kings, and the Rockets-but now he was going to be playing with his childhood buddy, Lamar. For Ron, it was like coming home.

Despite his background and his proclivity for playing rough, Ron is a good-natured soul off the court who does a lot of unpublicized charity work for children. Once, when he was in China, he met a young fan who couldn't afford to pay for his textbooks, let alone a pair of Ron's signature basketball shoes. So Ron took his $45,000 watch and auctioned it off to pay for the boy's education.

Ron has a flair for the outlandish. During his stint with the Kings, he offered-unsuccessfully-to forgo his entire salary in order to keep his friend, guard Bonzi Wells, from jumping to another team. And in 2011 he changed his name to Metta World Peace, as he said, "to inspire and bring youth together all around the world." The word "metta" means "loving kindness" in Pali, and refers to a key tenet of Buddhist teaching: cultivating universal love. Clearly, Ron has come a long way since his first days at the Lakers when he told San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Mark Ziegler, "I don't know what Zen means, but I'm looking forward to being a Zen man. I hope it makes me float. I always wanted to float."

My major concern about Ron was whether he could learn the triangle offense fast enough. Like Dennis Rodman, Ron had a hard time staying focused. Dennis's solution was to work out in the gym day and night to burn off restless energy. But Ron had trouble sticking to a workout regimen, so he practiced jump shots instead. The only problem was that every day he would shoot with a different style. And that affected the way he performed in games. Sometimes he was blessed and everything dropped in. Other times there was no way of telling what was going to happen.

During a practice session I suggested to Ron that he select one style of shooting and stick with it, but he took it the wrong way. "Why are you always picking on me?" he said.

"I didn't know I was picking on you," I replied. "I'm just trying to help you along."

Neither of us was speaking in anger, but a.s.sistant coach Brian Shaw pulled me aside and said, "You're walking a dangerous line there, Phil." I was stunned. I thought I was trying to be supportive. However, Brian worried that Ron might misinterpret my body language-moving in closer and talking in a low tone of voice-as a form of aggression.

After that incident, I realized that the best way to communicate with Ron was to couch everything in a positive way-not just with the words I used, but with my gestures and facial expressions as well. Eventually, he figured out the system and, with the help of Kobe and others, began integrating himself into the team's DNA.

Ron wasn't the only question mark in 200910. Another concern was Kobe's physical decline over the course of the season. In December he broke the index finger on his shooting hand during a game against the Timberwolves, but he decided to skip surgery and tough it out, a decision he later regretted. Not surprisingly, the injury had a negative impact on his shooting percentage; his numbers were down in several categories.

In February he aggravated his sprained ankle and agreed to sit out three games to let it heal. Kobe was proud of his iron-man resilience and hated to miss games. In fact, he had taken part in all 208 games in the previous two seasons. But he needed to recover, and the break gave the team a chance to practice playing together without him. They won all three games against leading opponents.

Just when Kobe started finding his rhythm again, his right knee, which had been bothering him for years, began to swell and forced him to miss two games in April. This injury would bother him throughout the playoffs and contributed to his mystifying shooting slump at the end of the season.

The only upside to Kobe's knee problem was its positive effect on our relations.h.i.+p. When his knee had started acting up the year before, I gave him the freedom to go light at practice-or even skip one here and there, if necessary, to help him maintain his leg strength. Kobe was touched by my concern for his well-being, and the bond between us grew stronger. We often bounced around ideas during practices and spent time scrutinizing game videos together on the team plane. Over time we developed the kind of intimate partners.h.i.+p that I'd enjoyed with Michael Jordan. But the connection was less formal with Kobe. With Michael, I'd often arrange meetings ahead to discuss strategy. Kobe and I talked all the time.

Kobe likes to say that he learned 90 percent of what he knows about leaders.h.i.+p from watching me in action. "It's not just a basketball way of leaders.h.i.+p," he says, "but a philosophy of how to live. Being present and enjoying each moment as it comes. Letting my children develop at their own pace and not trying to force them into doing something they're not really comfortable with, but just nurturing and guiding them along. I learned that all from Phil." I'm grateful for the thought.

As we headed into the playoffs, Kobe would have a number of opportunities to test his leaders.h.i.+p skills. Throughout the regular season the team had been beset by injuries, affecting several players in addition to Kobe. Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum each missed seventeen games due to various problems, and Luke Walton was out for most of the season with severe back pain. But we had good team chemistry for most of the year, and that allowed us to hold on to first place in the Western Conference with a 57-25 record, despite a 4-7 slump at the end of the season.

Our opponent in the first round was the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team that pushed us harder than we expected. To get inside their up-and-coming forward Kevin Durant's head, I told reporters that I thought the refs were babying him by giving him a lot of easy calls, as if he were a superstar. (He shot the most free throws during the season, in large part because of a move he used to hook his shooting arm under those of defenders, which has since been disallowed by the NBA.) Durant got defensive about the remark, which was what I wanted, but the NBA fined me $35,000, which was not exactly my plan. As it turned out, Durant had an unimpressive series, but I think Ron's defense on him had more to do with that than my gamesmans.h.i.+p.

The Thunder's strategy was to leave Ron wide open in the corners so that they could pull down the rebounds when he misfired and launch fast breaks. And Ron obliged, missing 20 of 23 three-point attempts in the first four games. The Thunder's fast-paced attack-and our slow transitional defense-allowed Oklahoma City to win two games at home and tie the series, 22.

Kobe had struggled during the first four games, but experienced a rebirth in game 5 after getting a significant amount of liquid drained from his aching knee. One of our best moves was having him cover the Thunder's free-wheeling point guard, Russell Westbrook, who had been running wild against our other guards. Kobe not only held Westbrook to 15 points on 4 for 13 shooting, he also galvanized our offense by acting as a facilitator and moving the ball inside to Pau, who scored 25 points, and Bynum (21). The final score: Lakers 111, Thunder 87.

In game 6, the puppet master was Artest, who held Durant to 21.7 percent from the field, one of the worst shooting percentages in playoff history. Still, the game was touch-and-go until the last second when Pau tipped in a Kobe miss to seal the victory, 9594.

The next two rounds were not as nerve-racking. A big plus was that Kobe, whose knee had become less bothersome, suddenly started averaging close to 30 points a game. After finis.h.i.+ng off the Jazz in four games, we faced the Phoenix Suns-the hottest team in the league since the All-Star break-in the Western Conference finals. They weren't as big as the Lakers upfront, but they had a strong 1-2 combination in Steve Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire, plus a strong bench and an energetic swarming defense.

The turning point was game 5 in L.A. The series was tied 22 and the score was close most of the way. Late in the game, with the Lakers ahead by 3, Ron grabbed an offensive rebound. But instead of letting the clock run down, he took an ill-conceived three-pointer and missed, allowing the Suns to fight back and tie the game with a three-pointer of their own. Fortunately, Ron redeemed himself with a few seconds left, picking off Kobe's wayward jumper and putting it in the hoop for the win at the buzzer.

Two days later we returned to Phoenix and closed out the series. Ron came alive again, going four for seven from three-point territory and scoring 25 points. It looked as if he were finally coming into his own-not a moment too soon.

As the champions.h.i.+p finals got under way against Boston, I was worried about the Celtics' bruising defense. Their strategy was to plug the lane with big bodies, put pressure on our guards to give up the ball, and force Lamar and Ron to take jump shots. It was a sound plan-one that had worked against us in the past. But we were more resilient than we'd been in 2008 and we had a wider range of scoring options.

We came out strong in game 1, powered by Pau, who was eager to show the world that he wasn't the "soft" pushover that reporters had made him out to be in 2008. But the Celtics answered back in game 2 with a stunning performance by shooting guard Ray Allen, who scored 32 points, including a finals record 8 three-pointers. Fish took a lot of heat in the media for letting Allen run amok, but Kobe also had trouble containing point guard Rajon Rondo, who had a triple-double. All of a sudden, the series was tied, 11, and we were headed for three games in Boston.

Game 3 was payback time for Fish. First, he shut down Allen on defense, forcing him to go 0-13 from the field, one miss shy of a finals record. Then Fish commandeered the game in the fourth quarter, going on an 11-point surge to win back home-court advantage for the Lakers. He fought back tears as he entered the locker room after the game, overcome by what he'd just accomplished. Still, the Celtics didn't let up. They took the next two games to go ahead 32 in the series and set up a cla.s.sic showdown in L.A.

Tex Winter used to say that our successful champions.h.i.+p runs were usually triggered by one game in which we completely dominated our opponents from beginning to end. Game 6 was such a game. We took command in the first quarter and beat the Celtics decisively, 8967, to tie the series again.

Boston's spirit was hardly broken, though. They came out strong at the start of game 7 and had a six-point lead at the half. Midway through the third quarter, the Celtics pushed their edge up to 13, and I decided to step out of character and call two time-outs. This time I couldn't sit back and wait for the players to come up with a solution; I needed to s.h.i.+ft the energy immediately.

The trouble was, Kobe wanted to win so badly that he'd abandoned the triangle and reverted to his old gunslinging ways. But he was pressing so hard that he was missing his shots. I told him to trust the offense. "You don't have to do it all by yourself," I said. "Just allow the game to come to you."

This was a cla.s.sic example of when it's more important to pay attention to the spirit than the scoreboard. Soon after, I overheard Fish formulating a plan with Kobe to have him get back inside the offense when Fish came off the bench and returned to the floor.

As soon as Kobe made the switch, things started flowing smoothly again and we began slowly eating away at the Celtics' lead. The key moment was Fish's three-pointer with 6:11 left in the game that tied the score, 6464, and ignited a 90 run that put us ahead by 6. The Celtics pulled within 3 on Rasheed Wallace's three-pointer at the 1:23 mark, but Artest answered back immediately with another three-pointer, as we held on to win, 8379.

The beauty of this game was its raw intensity. It was like watching two veteran heavyweights who'd been battling each other with everything they had step back into the ring one last time and push themselves until the last bell sounded.

When the game was over, emotions ran deep. Kobe, who called this win "by far the sweetest" of them all, leapt onto the scorer's table and reveled in the cheers of the crowd, his arms outstretched and a blizzard of purple-and-gold confetti snowing down on him. Fish, who was usually Mr. Stoic, teared up again in the locker room as he embraced a wet-eyed Pau Gasol. Magic Johnson, who'd taken part in five champions.h.i.+p celebrations, told the Los Angeles Times's Mike Bresnahan that he'd never witnessed such an outpouring of emotion in a Lakers' locker room. "I think they finally understood the history of the rivalry and how hard it was to beat the Celtics," he said.