More often than not when a team comes back from 20 down midway through the third quarter you can do a lot of finger pointing on the team that blew the lead. That wasn’t the case last night as Kobe grabbed the reins of the Lakers and brought them all the way back to win in an extremely important Game One.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI7qwzX_4MA&hl=en

Kobe’s performance was just downright amazing after a first half that saw him only put up two points on only three shots. The second was a completely different story as he put up 25 points, basically willed his team to the comeback, and hit the game winning jumper with 23.9 left on the clock.

Afterwards both Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley stated that a loss is just a loss, but I have to agree with Reggie Miller in the fact that this one is different for the Spurs. It wasn’t a blowout in New Orleans, but rather a game on the road that they should have won. Great start to the Western Conference Finals.