If the Lakers win the championship—- and no team have lost the finals after taking a 3-1 lead — Bryant will be a lock to win his first finals Most Valuable Player award.

Special one

It would be the franchise’s 15th championship and Bryant’s fourth, but his first without O’Neal. That topic was among the many that evoked cold sentence fragments from Bryant when the finals began.

“It definitely means a lot to him,” said the former Lakers guard Tyronn Lue, who now plays for the Magic. “He’ll probably say it doesn’t, but the competitor he is, he definitely wants to win without Shaq to prove everybody wrong.”

O’Neal earned his fourth championship in 2007, with Miami. With his next ring, Bryant will join O’Neal and the San Antonio Spurs’s Tim Duncan as the most decorated superstars in the post-Jordan era. He will move that much closer to matching Jordan’s set of six.

Someone mentioned the possibility, and Bryant batted it away, but this time with humour. “I’m trying to get this damn fourth one,” he said with a laugh.

Even discussion of Bryant’s future, a subject that usually irritates him, became fodder for one-liners. “I have a decision about my future?” he said, coyly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

When another reporter probed further — “because you just brought it up” — Bryant quickly corrected him: “I didn’t bring it up. I deflected.” More laughter.

But no, Bryant said, he cannot imagine playing for anyone other than the Lakers, which should be comforting to Los Angeles fans, though not surprising.