Look How Cute He Is When He's Mad

The Magic got off the mat last night and beat the Lakers in Game 3 thanks, in part, to Kobe Bryant's dismal performance down the stretch. "The best closer in basketball" finished a terrible second half with this final minute stat-line: 1 missed fall-away 3, 1 missed unnecessarily desperate heave from 3, 1 rebound and put back, 1-2 from the free throw line, 0 angry-3-year-old faces.

My theory is that he came out poorly in the second half because he strained his face practicing his new angry-3-year-old face in front of the mirror at halftime.

I was glad to see that ESPN.com had a piece somewhat mocking Kobe's new phony-intensity face yesterday. Other Lakers were interviewed and they pretty much all mocked him (that's the last time he ever passes), but then each of them got serious and remembered what the P.R. department had apparently told them to say and they repeated by rote, "I guess it just shows how intense he is. You know, how much he wants this."

So he never really wanted it before? The fact that we've never seen this, the latest of Kobe's transparent "look at meeeeee" stunts, must mean he never tried before right? It can't be that he was envious of the "warrior"-status given to Kevin Garnett because he makes this same insanely stupid face all the time. It can't be that Big Baby Davis got a ton of air-time when he made his contorted "angry lower-jaw" face after his buzzer-beater early in these playoffs.

No, I'm sure it is authentic intensity that causes him to inexplicably have a wicked underbite after he makes a shot late in games.

In other Finals news, I am nominating the following four quotes for the 2008-2009 Dumbest NBA Commentators Moment award.

"The Lakers are down by 8 and have missed 8 free throws. Make those and they'd be tied. Or close to tied." - Mychal Thompson. As Chevy Chase once said, "It was my understanding that there would be no math."

"I always used to tell my players, don't shoot 3's with a foot on the line." - Jeff Van Gundy. I like Van Gundy, and I like John Madden, but sometimes Van Gundy sounds just as confused and excited and desperate just to say something as Madden.

"I always say, these are the biggest free throws of his career." - Mychel Thompson. Perhaps in Bahamian English, "biggest" means "most recent."

"The 1st thing you gotta do is get the ball in bounds." - Jeff Van Gundy. This was great because he didn't follow it up with any kind of strategy for doing so, or what to do next. He just wanted to make the point, in the last minute of a tied Finals game, that passing it in comes first.