The 2008-09 Los Angeles Lakers were on a mission to return to the NBA Finals and correct what went wrong there the year before when they lost by 39 points to the Boston Celtics in Game 6.
Kobe Bryant and crew won 65 regular season games and were singularly focused on bringing the Larry O’Brien Trophy back to Los Angeles.
But before they could play for it, they had to deal with the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals.
The Nuggets were a very good team that perhaps believed their time had come. Early in the season, they had swapped Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups, the same Billups who had torched the Lakers in the 2004 Finals and won series MVP honors.
Billups changed the culture in Denver, and suddenly the team was focused on defense and team-oriented basketball.
Fresh off winning a gold medal with Bryant at the 2008 Olympics, Carmelo Anthony had a fine season, but the Black Mamba would have a message to send to him.
In Game 1 of the conference finals, Anthony got off to a strong start, propelling Denver to a 31-23 lead at the end of the first quarter. He would finish the game with 39 points on 14-of-20 shooting.
But Bryant did just a little better with 40 points, 18 of them coming in the fourth quarter, to carry the Lakers to a hard-earned 105-103 victory.
It was not exactly a beautiful game for L.A., as it shot just 41.1 percent from the field.
But Bryant’s will, effort and leadership got the job done, as it often did over the years.
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