As we all clearly witnessed, Kobe Bryant hurt his back early in the game on Sunday afternoon in Utah as the Lakers went down in overtime to the tough Jazz. The Utah Jazz played their hearts out and worked hard in overtime to secure the home win and extend the series to six games.

Andrei Kirelinko had the assignment of guarding Kobe Bryant and I must admit, he did a fine job. Actually, he did a great job. Kobe still went off for 30+ points, but those points were damn hard to accumulate. He worked hard to get those baskets and shot a lousy percentage. His free throw shooting was off as well bringing the teams percentage even lower.

After the game, Bryant conducted his post game interview for the media standing up rather than sitting down behind the table like all coaches and players do. He spoke of the superb defense that AK47 played on him and he made it clear that he would be ready to play on Wednesday in Game 5 back at Staples Center.

Tuesday was another tough day for him though. He showed up at the training facility in El Segundo, just like every other Lakers teammate of his, however he didn’t practice. He has gone through round the clock therapy on his back to make sure he recovers in time to give his best effort. We all know that game 5 is almost a “must win” because if the Jazz come away with a victory, it will be quite difficult beating them back in Salt Lake City in game 6.

When asked of his back today he spoke confidently. “Quite a bit [of pain], but it’s a lot better than it was yesterday,” Bryant said with a smile — his mood clearly positive. “It’ll be fine. I think the key is to know what you can and can’t do,” he said. “I kind of know what I can and can’t do. I hope I can do what’s necessary to help us win. Sleeping’s tough. This car ride home is going to be a beast, sitting in traffic. I’ll stretch out when I get home.”

Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he believes there’s a possibility Bryant might not shoot that well, but added: “As long as he can play, we’re satisfied. He’ll do OK.” Jackson also said he wasn’t feeling the pressure a deadlocked series might bring. Having coached nine NBA championship teams, he’s been in this kind of situation many times before. “We know we have homecourt advantage. We earned it,” Jackson said. “We feel very confident in our building. I personally am for the cut-slash game. I like speed. Our team is long, lanky, lean. You’ve got to beat the opponent to the punch. You’ve got to deliver the first blow. That’s what I’m telling the guys.”

Well, all I know is that I can’t wait to see this game tomorrow night. I finish my last final of the spring semester at 6:00PM and will be ready to watch the Lakers at 6:01PM!! I will be on this Lakers blog putting together a live play by play for the game! Prepare to enjoy!

I’ve been reading the horrendous stories published by J.A. Adande for quite a while now and have always wondered how this man is employed. His ESPN chats were always going in one direction as he waited for the perfect time to bring up the current issues of racism into a basketball conversation. He has campaigned for Barack Obama. He has spoke of every racial issue known to man. Why did he get a job with ESPN? Because they must have seen something about him that the rest of us, me, didn’t.

I have finally seen what this man is capable of. After Kobe Bryant was awarded the NBA MVP trophy by David Stern before tip off of Game 2 against the Utah Jazz at Staples Center, Adande wrote an article published in the Daily Dime about Kobe and the man he has become. A story of the Lakers. A story of a team.

Thank you Mr. Adande for finally giving me something to enjoy. Hopefully the rest of your work continues on a similar path.

Here is the article:

Will Kobe Be Able To Keep His Promise?

LOS ANGELES — Kobe Bryant was spinning through the whole wheel of emotions after David Stern handed him his first Most Valuable Player trophy.

Appreciative, emotional, grateful, excited. And then, at the end of his speech to the adoring Staples Center crowd, Bryant switched back into the cold-blooded hit man we’re used to seeing this time of year.

“We’re going to play until June,” Bryant vowed.

June is the NBA calendar code word for the Finals, the professional equivalent of the first Monday in April for college hoops.

Bryant didn’t seem to care that the Utah Jazz were standing along the baseline the whole time, that any continuance of the Lakers’ season would have to come at their expense. It’s almost as if the Jazz are the details, not the obstacle. The Jazz have had two cracks at the Lakers now, following the Denver Nuggets’ quick exit, and no one has been able to dent the Lakers’ offensive efficiency.

The Lakers are the only undefeated team in the playoffs. They’re the only team to score more than 100 points each game. And as far as this series is concerned, they’re the only team with two players who own championship rings. (Utah center Mehmet Okur has a ring from his two-year stint with the Detroit Pistons.)

It’s the leadership of those two ring-bearers in particular, Bryant and Derek Fisher, that has the Lakers up 2-0 in this series. But it’s the collective effort of this entire team that has Bryant envisioning the Lakers on the court in Month 6.

The Lakers lead all playoff teams with an average of 26.5 assists per game. They’re shooting 49 percent from the field. Their offense is breathtaking at times, with its rapid ball movement and the end result of shots dropping straight through the net.

“We believe in ourselves,” Bryant said. “We have a high basketball IQ, collectively. That’s why I believe we’ll be playing in June. Because we all think the game extremely well. We play as a unit at both ends of the floor. That’s what you need to play into June.”

To symbolize the togetherness of this team, Bryant called all of the players out to join him at the middle of the court at the end of the ceremony.

It was a nice photo op, but it’s actually the opposite of the way the Lakers have operated this season. They’ve been about team first, then closing with Bryant. He took them home Wednesday, finishing off the Jazz with six points in the final four minutes, playing a game of cat-and-mouse with defender Andrei Kirilenko, drawing more fouls (he has attempted 35 free throws in the two games) and telling courtside observer Denzel Washington, “He can’t guard me, D.”

“He’s the guy that made the difference when it came down,” Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said of Bryant. “They gave him the basketball and cleared out the side, and he just beat us.”

Bryant scored 34 points, right at his playoff average, in a comfort zone that allows him to get his buckets while not starving his teammates of the ball. Fisher made 7 of 10 shots (including 4 of 5 3-pointers) for 22 points and defended Deron Williams, who was a nonfactor until the final quarter, when it was too late.

Plus, the Lakers got another double-double for Lamar Odom (19 and 16 rebounds), 20 points from Pau Gasol and 12 points off the bench for Sasha Vujacic. The Lakers shot 57 percent from the field and even higher — 64 percent — from 3-point range.

“Execution, that’s what the triangle’s all about,” Odom said. “We want to continue to get better and better at it.”

It was during Phil Jackson’s year away from the team, when the Lakers tried Rudy Tomjanovich’s offense and Bryant found second defenders attacking him from all sides, that Bryant gained a better appreciation for the triangle. It allows him to get isolations on the wing and gives him more area to work with more space between the defenders. The key is Bryant hasn’t chosen to isolate himself from the team, or even the league at large, anymore.

“I think that there are times where [players] don’t realize what they do for the game and what the game does for them until after they’re retired,” Stern told reporters before the game. “And it’s always rewarding for me for players either before or at their prime to come to have an understanding of what the game has done and continues to do for them, what it means to them, really, and what their performance means to others. And I get the strong sense that Kobe has reached that point this season.”

It all resulted in a trip to L.A. for Stern so he could preside over the ceremony. Lakers fans have been chanting “MVP” for Bryant over three seasons now, and now that their demands had finally been answered they were even louder. There was an unusually high energy level in the building, which the Lakers credited for their fast start.

Bryant made a rookie MVP mistake when he walked off the court holding the trophy. Standard procedure is to leave it on the table for others to remove.

“I didn’t know,” Bryant said. “I’m new to this.

“Next time, I’ll leave it.”

He was laughing about this. Not nearly as serious as when he talked about playing into June. As festive as this night was, the underlying message was that trophies are nice, but banners are even better.

J.A. Adande is the author of “The Best Los Angeles Sports Arguments.” He joined ESPN.com as an NBA columnist in August 2007 after 10 years with the Los Angeles Times. Click here to e-mail J.A.

Out among the many reports and media personnel, there are many that deserve not only to be fired, but some should be killed and turned into chairs so that YI Jianlian can dunk on them. One of these writers, is Shaun Powell. It seems that a lot of guy have plenty of hatred toward players like Kobe Bryant that have achieved so much over their careers that they have to make up for their own failures by talking trash about Kobe.

There has been such a big deal made about the “person” that Kobe is rather than the “player” that he is. Seriously, who cares what he does in his personal life? If it’s not illegal, who cares?

Let’s suppose that he is a single man, has 43 mistresses and parties like no other every single night. Do fans pay for tickets to see Kobe Bryant live out his social life or do they pay to see Kobe make amazing plays and drop 81 points on the Toronto Raptors? Seriously… I want to see some basketball, not a show about his personal life and what night clubs he goes to.

You know what, just for the sake of this argument, let’s take into account the actions of Kobe Bryant last summer when he demanded to be traded to a “Championship contender.” Was he not correct in wanting to win? Was he not correct in arguing that a proven professional such as Jason Kidd was worth giving away the potential of Andrew Bynum? Keep in mind that Bynum had not yet proven anything at this point in time besides immaturity and a lack of worth ethic. He’s a great kid with tremendous potential, but potential is about it. The future can’t be predicted but only assumed. Management believed in Bynum, so they stuck with him and he turned out to be a great piece of the puzzle.

Lots of analysts are saying, “Kobe complained a lot about Mitch Kupchak and then he was the one that made a big deal happen and turned this team into a contender.” Let’s not forget something, Mitch Kupchak publicly said that had Andrew Bynum not gone down, the Lakers wouldn’t have made the trade for Pau Gasol. Let me ask you a question now… if the trade for Pau Gasol is available using Kwame Brown’s expiring contract and the potential of Javaris Crittenton, isn’t it management’s responsibility to make it happen no matter what? Shouldn’t the Lakers organization want to bring in a guy like Pau Gasol, even if they are winning games, because they will clearly improve that much more? You got to believe that had Kobe Bryant not put the pressure on management this Summer, they would never have made this trade, even after Bynum had gone down. Kupchak and Buss would’ve been content just riding out the season and seeing whether Andrew Bynum recovers before trying to get something done this next off season.

I found this article talking about Kobe receiving the MVP award and how he deserves it as a player, but the author couldn’t resist but talk a little bit more trash. Just leave him alone. Why not just give the man his props and let him enjoy his achievements. So i decided to comment back with the following:

Wow, I couldn’t disagree with you more on your article. This is the media making an attempt to gain publicity over a controversial article. How about you write an article that means something and has real depth instead of brushing over the controversial topics that may generate some attention to your name?

Kobe Bryant is a warrior and is a winner. He is the ultimate athlete. To be an ultimate athlete, one must possess more than just physical ability, but heart and passion. Kobe’s emotion on the basketball court is unmatched. There is no body in the league that wants to win as bad as he does. There is not a single soul that strives for perfection like Kobe. Winning is the only thing that shows one is a winner. Kobe is a winner and he wants to win.

How can a competitor such as Kobe Bryant be blamed for wanting nothing more than to deliver an NBA Championship to the team that he has been with for 11 years? There is no excuse for the Laker to stoop down to the level of the Clippers and accept failure. The Lakers are a winning franchise and they do not accept anything other than winning. Kobe is a winner. Kobe is a Laker.

For anyone else that wants to leave this guy some comments, please do so at THIS SITE and then copy paste your comments to him back here so I can have a laugh as well.

Also, head over to the Starting Five for a full on Kobe Bryant discussion about his character and achievements.

ESPN put together a clip of an interview last night after Kobe Bryant received his first and hopefully not last NBA Most Valuable Player award. The trophy will be presented to him by David Stern later this evening before the tip of the Los Angeles Lakers vs Utah Jazz game at Staples Center.

I really liked this video and I hope you all enjoy it as well. Kobe has really matured and learned how to give great interviews.