Rising to the Moment / Bryant’s clutch three-pointer sends game into OT, where Lakers get even

The amazing thing wasn’t the shot.

The amazing thing was that Kobe Bryant could still walk afterward, stalking back to the Laker bench, pounding his right fist on his chest, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times.

The rest of the city couldn’t move.

The rest of the city couldn’t speak.

The rest of the city is exhausted from eight years of roaring, four postseasons of stomping, two months of gasping, and several prolonged Tuesday night minutes of an unadulterated scream.

When Bryant hit his long three-pointer to tie the Detroit Pistons with 2.1 seconds remaining Tuesday night, did you hear what sounded like an oncoming train, and realize it was you?

When Bryant then took over in the overtime, firing and flying and contributing to eight of the Lakers’ 10 points, did you feel chill bumps on two arms, and notice they were yours?

When the Lakers finished off Game 2 of the NBA Finals with a 99-91 victory to tie the series, did you tell someone you didn’t believe it, then later said that of course you believed it?

You are not alone.

Still dizzy two years after Horry, still staggering two weeks after Fisher, Los Angeles has plopped numbly into its chair today, shaking its head, rubbing its eyes, still not quite sure if it has just seen the greatest Laker shot of this era.

It has. It was.

With 10.9 seconds remaining Tuesday and the Pistons leading by three points, the Lakers were done. The dynasty was finished.

This was not San Antonio-finished, where the Lakers would have had at least one more home game if Derek Fisher’s shot had not saved them in the conference semifinals.

This was finished-finished.

No team has ever lost the first two games of a Finals series at home and rebounded to win the series.

With Karl Malone playing on one leg, with Gary Payton playing from his butt on the bench, with the Pistons winning every battle for every ball, the Lakers of 2003-04 were expensive, overrated toast.

So, too, was the roster. During that Laker timeout with 10.9 seconds left, did you think that maybe this would be the last time you would be seeing Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in the same uniform on the Staples Center floor?

If you did, you were probably right. There was no way the Lakers were winning two out of three games in Detroit if they lost here. They would have ended their season in some faceless suburb and the next time you saw them, half of them may have been strangers.

Until Kobe.

Always Kobe. In youthful years, in growing years, and even in this toughest of years.

“After what that kid’s been through all this year, more power to him,” Piston Coach Larry Brown said.

Only Kobe.

“I was thinking, ‘Anybody but him,’ ” said the Pistons’ Elden Campbell, a former Laker. “You know, anybody else. But, oh well.”

The night of what he called his greatest shot was the night that best epitomized his career here.

He was hot early. He hogged the ball late. He entertained, then irritated O’Neal. He lifted up the crowd, then silenced them.

Before that three-point attempt, he had missed on five of eight shots in the fourth quarter, more heaves than any of his teammates combined.

Before that attempt, he had made only four of 28 three-point attempts in the fourth quarter in the playoffs.

But you know Kobe. He never thinks he’s going to miss. He made those two incredible late shots in Portland at the end of the season, and the memory alone was enough to carry him into summer.

“It’s all about the challenge,” he said late Tuesday. “Playing for the highest stakes, I can rise to that.”

And Detroit can fall to that, which is a nice way of transitioning to the question that will forever accompany the shot.

Why didn’t the Pistons foul somebody?

Leading by three points with so few seconds left, don’t you hack somebody before they shoot, and, even if they make both free throws, you have the ball and a one-point lead and control your destiny?

It’s not that complicated, is it?

Malone threw the inbounds pass to O’Neal; they could have fouled him. O’Neal threw the ball to Luke Walton; they could have tackled him. Then Bryant took the pass from Walton and took several dribbles, during which Richard Hamilton could have fouled him before he went up.

Where was the foul?

“We don’t foul in a situation like that,” Brown said. “He’s going to go up and shoot it anyway.”

Indeed, Bryant was so sure they were going to foul, he’d planned his shot around it.

“I was actually waiting for them to foul,” he said. “I was trying to time it up, just waiting for my dribble, gauging the dribble and waiting for them to come in.”

But they never did, at least not soon enough to wrap arms around him and prevent that shot.

Hamilton ran at Bryant, threw his arms straight in the air, but on this night, nothing so human could get in the way of fate.

“I just gathered my balance and knocked it down,” Bryant said, later adding, “This is what we do for a living. If you can’t rise to the pressure, you shouldn’t be playing.”

Point-four? Meet two-point-one.

Bryant rose to that pressure, and, as usual, his teammates rose with him.

On Detroit’s previous possession, struggling with a knee injury, Fisher nonetheless threw himself in front of Chauncey Billups on a drive, forcing an off-balance shot that kept the margin at three points.

“A half-bleep shot,” said Brown, as Fisher once again received little credit.

Then Malone, with his own, more serious knee injury -- a sprain that was a recurrence of the problem that sidelined him for most of the early season -- hung close enough to Rasheed Wallace to perhaps cause him to miss the inbounds pass from Billups in the final 2.1 seconds of regulation.

Two guys, two limps, two efforts that wouldn’t buckle.

Overtime was, of course, Kobe time.

A double-pump drive and pass to a dunking O’Neal. A layup through three guys. Another good pass to O’Neal for a little hook.

By then, it was over, and the series and season lived, shakily, wearily, but deafeningly.

“Man,” said Campbell, still shaking his head. “We really let this one get away.”

Sorry, but it was taken from you, as it has been taken from many teams just like you, by Laker history, by Laker magic, by Kobe.

Eight nutty years. Five draining postseasons. No more than five games remaining.

Get your rest.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Kobe Bryant Classics

A look at some memorable last-second shots by Kobe Bryant:

May 10, 2000 -- at Lakers 97, Phoenix 96

* Down by one point with less than 20 seconds to play, Bryant zigzagged his way to the free-throw line, then jumped over Jason Kidd and around Rodney Rogers, hung in the air as they fell back to earth, and made a 14-footer with 2.6 seconds left to give the Lakers a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.

June 15, 2000 -- Lakers 120, at Indiana 118

* Bryant scores on a putback of a Brian Shaw miss with 5.9 seconds left in overtime to give Lakers the win and a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals.

May 12, 2002 -- Lakers 87, at San Antonio 85

* Bryant scores 10 points in the last five minutes, the last two coming on a putback with 5.1 seconds left to give the Lakers a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.

April 14, 2004 -- Lakers 105, at Portland 104 (2OT)

* Trailing, 87-84, Bryant makes a 26-foot three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send the game into overtime, then, trailing by two, Bryant makes a 26-foot high arching three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Lakers the win in the second overtime.

June 8, 2004 -- at Lakers 99, Detroit 91 (OT)

* With the Lakers down by three in regulation, Bryant ties the score with a three-pointer with 2.1 seconds left. The Lakers outscore Detroit in overtime, 10-2, to even the NBA Finals, 1-1.