As the Los Angeles Lakers began the 2009 NBA playoffs, they were possessed by the opportunity to rectify their brutal loss to the Boston Celtics in the previous year’s NBA Finals.
No one on the team was more possessed than Kobe Bryant, who was looking to prove he could win it all without Shaquille O’Neal and fulfill his basketball destiny.
The first step toward those goals was facing the Utah Jazz in the opening round of the postseason.
L.A. won the first two games at home pretty easily, but it dropped Game 3 when Bryant shot 5-of-24.
He wouldn’t let it happen again.
In Game 4, he came out aggressive, and it turned into one of the most efficient outings of his career.
The Black Mamba finished with 38 points on a ridiculous 16-of-24 shooting from the field as the Lakers won, 108-94, and took a stranglehold on the series.
They dispatched the Jazz in five and fulfilled their year-long goal of winning the NBA championship while doing so again the following year over none other than the Celtics.
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