Bryant Picks a Bad Time for Awful Game

For the Lakers this was a bad night for a reminder that the evolution isn’t complete, that Kobe Bryant is only 25 years old, that one of the many paths the future has in store for him could take him to an even higher level of basketball.

It might seem an unfair burden that Bryant no longer is judged by his own standards or any of his peers, but must continuously be compared to Michael Jordan. Bryant welcomes it -- if not the constant mentions of Jordan’s name, then the fact that he’s mentioned among the game’s greatest.

By any measure, Bryant came up small in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night. He scored 11 points, made only four of 13 shots and committed a game-high four turnovers as the Lakers went down with a thud to the Detroit Pistons, 88-68.

That means there’s still one more step to take.

Actually, it’s a step to avoid: anything backward. Jordan would never retreat from greatness, never back off one of his most memorable performances with a game in which he never made an impact.

Bryant reverted to the start Thursday night. From the moment he arrived in the NBA, Bryant reminded many sportswriters of Jordan by his speech pattern alone.

In Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Finals, the comparisons first began in earnest. Despite a tender ankle that he sprained in Game 2, Bryant led the Lakers past the Indiana Pacers in overtime after Shaquille O’Neal fouled out. He made jumpers, layups, and finally scored on a put-back of a Brian Shaw miss. He had arrived.

Or maybe not. The next game, when the Lakers had a chance to close out the series, he scored only eight points in 37 minutes as the Pacers smoked the Lakers by 33 points.

Bryant didn’t have as poor a performance again until Thursday night. OK, one clunker every five years isn’t so bad, right? After all, O’Neal has had three nights of 12 points or fewer in these playoffs, alone.

It can only be considered a shortcoming if the comparison is with Jordan. Once the Chicago Bulls got their championship era running, Jordan just didn’t go out that way.

Jordan was embedded in everyone’s minds after Bryant’s latest and greatest big shot, the three-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation that sent Game 2 into overtime and prevented the Lakers from traveling here with a two-game deficit.

An NBA player called me Wednesday morning to say he’d never seen anyone like Bryant in crunch time. This was a man who played with Jordan on the Bulls’ first three-peat team.

Here at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Thursday night, Jordan’s old nemesis Isiah Thomas said, “I think when it’s all said and done, if Kobe keeps going in the direction that it’s going, you guys may be talking about him instead of Michael.”

All is not said and done yet -- although this series is done if Bryant and the Lakers don’t bounce back on Sunday.

They keep mounting the historical obstacles. None of the last nine Game 3 losers of Finals that were tied 1-1 came back to win the series. Do they dare tempt the big whammy? Only six teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win, none of them in the Finals.

Of course, it’s an NBA rule of thumb that superstars don’t have two bad games in a row. What are the odds of two superstars having two consecutive off games?

O’Neal, mind you, scored only 14 points Thursday. But he did make half his shots. And he didn’t always have the ball -- as he was quick to point out.

Bryant did have the ball in his hands often. That was part of the problem. By initiating the offense, he also gave the Pistons a chance to size him up. (Size being the operative word when the 6-foot-9 Tayshaun Prince guarded him).

“For the most part tonight I was attacking 30 feet from the basket,” Bryant said. “That’s something Phil [Jackson] and I talked about after the game, is me not having to attack 30 feet from the basket, doing some things in our execution to give me sharper opportunities and quicker opportunities.”

The Pistons sent a second defender his way when he dribbled, left the helping big man on him whenever he came off screens, jammed him up all over the court.

Gary Payton’s suggestion was to let him penetrate, draw defenders and dish to Bryant. It’s one of the more rational things he has said all week.

Luke Walton brought it down to one word: “Execute.”

If the Lakers pass the ball, move around and keep the floor spaced, Bryant will have better scoring chances.

They didn’t do much for him Thursday night, and missed several chances to get him the ball when he had the smaller Lindsey Hunter guarding him.

Two things Jordan excelled at were creating his own space by recognizing the approaching double-team, spinning away from it and taking fallaway jumpers, and getting easy points at the foul line. Bryant shot only three free throws Thursday, the first on a defensive three-second technical foul on the Pistons. It was his only point of the first half.

He didn’t make a field goal until he fired in a jumper with 7:35 left in the third quarter.

By then the Lakers were well behind the Pistons. And it was obvious that Bryant would not get any closer to Jordan’s six championships on this night.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.

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How Low Can They Go

The fewest total points scored in an NBA Finals game since the 24-second shot clock was introduced for the 1954-55 season:

*--* Pts Teams Date 145 Fort Wayne (74) def. Syracuse (71) April 7, 1955 (Game 5) 147 San Antonio (80) def. New York (67) June 18, 1999 (Game 2) 150 Chicago (96) def. Utah (54) June 7, 1998 (Game 3) 153 New Jersey (77) def. San Antonio (76) June 11, 2003 (Game 4) 155 San Antonio (78) def. New York (77) June 25, 1999 (Game 5) 156 Detroit (88) def. Lakers (68) June 10, 2004 (Game 3) 162 Detroit (87) def. Lakers (75) June 6, 2004 (Game 1) 162 Chicago (87) def. Seattle (75) June 16, 1996 (Game 6) 163 San Antonio (84) def. New Jersey (79) June 9, 2003 (Game 3) 163 Houston (85) def. New York (78) June 8, 1994 (Game 1)

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