It was the merging of two worlds for Bryant, a fusion of team unity and his obsession with earning his fourth championship ring. The Lakers found their destination, their 15th NBA championship, after a meandering route. When the final buzzer sounded, they stood with a 99-86 series-clinching victory in Game 5 against the Magic, whose season-long resilience was lost amid Bryant’s efficiency.

With 30 points on Sunday, Bryant secured his first finals Most Valuable Player award. The champagne-drenched evening ended a seven-year championship drought in which speed bumps had turned into mountains for the Lakers.

In the stretch between titles, the Lakers had become burdened by soap-opera story lines: from the trade of Shaquille O’Neal to the retirement and rehiring of Coach Phil Jackson to the disappointing showing in last season’s finals against the Boston Celtics.

Jackson now has 10 titles to surpass the legendary Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach. The titles were flanked by disappointment, and Jackson’s scalp now shows more salt and less pepper, the accumulation of layered trials before another triumph. Jackson’s hair was covered after the win Sunday by a gold cap, with the Roman numeral X on it. He called the moment “surreal.”

“I wasn’t at the stage of my life where I could get out and do the things that I had done 10 years ago or 15 years ago to push a team,” Jackson said. “And they pushed themselves and I really feel strongly that this is about them.”

Bryant and Derek Fisher each have four titles, their redemption arriving a year after they faltered badly against the Celtics. There was no such cowering against the Magic. In a series defined by comebacks, overtimes and missed opportunities, the clinching game felt anticlimactic. After Rafer Alston’s 3-pointer early in the third quarter, the Magic was within striking distance, 58-53. Lamar Odom responded with consecutive 3s as the Lakers again separated themselves by double digits, a margin they maintained the rest of the game. Dwight Howard, who legitimised his status as one of the game’s stars during the postseason, had his night stymied by the defensive efforts of Pau Gasol. “It was like Chinese water torture, just keep dropping a drop of water on your temple,” Bryant said of the talk that he could not win a title without O’Neal. “It was annoying. I was just like, it’s a challenge I’m just going to have to accept because there’s no way I’m going to argue it.”

With the title all but secured, Bryant’s emotions came out when he hugged Sasha Vujacic as the Lakers crowded one another during a timeout, their lead at 97-84, with 40.4 seconds left. His hands free from Mickael Pietrus and Courtney Lee, Bryant leaped in the air as the buzzer sounded and soon he was holding his daughters Natalia and Gianna.