Bryant was so exhausted afterward he had to be treated for dehydration. He was hyperventilating in the locker room. He had carried the Lakers in the previous game in Los Angeles, scoring 42 points after flying back from a hearing in Eagle, Colo., involving the felony sexual assault charges against him.
The Lakers entered the season under the cloud of those rape allegations but bolstered by the acquisition of veteran superstars Payton and Karl Malone. The team was touted as having one of the greatest lineups ever seen in the NBA, and for a while the Lakers seemed to justify the hype, winning 18 of their first 21 games.
Malone, however, suffered a knee injury that kept him from playing for nearly three months, and the Lakers struggled amid well-publicized tensions between Bryant and O'Neal. Bryant's game and practice schedules were interrupted by a number of trips to pretrial hearings, and he drew resentment among his teammates -- especially O'Neal -- for shooting more than anyone else. But he led the Lakers with his scoring and late-game heroics.
Already the NBA's most glamorous team, the Lakers became one of the most watched teams in sports. ABC Television's play-by-play announcer, Al Michaels, alluded to that moments after Fisher's game-winning shot Thursday, saying, "From Day 1 ... this Laker team has been in the spotlight like no team I can remember."
The Spurs were the team that eliminated the Lakers, four games to two, in last year's playoffs, and they also ended an 11-game winning streak the Lakers had put together a few weeks ago.But Fisher suggested that ousting San Antonio did not give the Laker players any greater satisfaction than defeating any other team.
"Until we win the title, it doesn't really matter who you beat along the way," he said. "It won't say on the ring or in the summer there won't be much talk in terms of who you played. It will be about the end results."
Times staff writer Mike Terry contributed to this report.
