Kobe Bryant made a jump shot along the baseline Sunday and stumbled back, sliding all the way into the empty Staples Center courtside chair next to Tim Leiweke, the CEO of AEG.
Leiweke, the man who hopes to bring the NFL and new digs to downtown Los Angeles, dressed all in black, got a close-up view of a potentially three-peat-ending injury.
Even though Bryant returned to play in the game with a bruised neck, the New Orleans Hornets delivered an unexpected blow, shocking the Lakers with a 109-100 victory in the first game of the first-round Western Conference playoff series.
"You don't want to be the guy that sees it happen right in front of you, not when we have the arena," Leiweke said of Bryant's scary courtside mishap.
Bryant wasn't the guy, either. Bryant scored a game-high 34 points, but the veteran couldn't will his team to a victory, not even by taking 26 shots and making half of those.
Bryant is the leader of the Lakers - he is the Lakers - who played just as sluggish in their first postseason game as they did to end the regular season, losing six of their last eight games.
Losing one game to the No.7 seed Hornets was bad, but losing Bryant would have been worse for the Lakers.
When Bryant couldn't rise to his feet after the collision, the sellout Staples Center crowd rose to its feet. The threat of a Lakers three-peat hung in the balance of Bryant's ability to move his neck from side to side. After chanting
"MVP" early in the game, the chants turned to "Kobe!"Bryant grabbed his neck, grimaced and turned over on his stomach. He stayed down.
"I couldn't feel my neck for a minute," Bryant said.
Leiweke asked him if he was OK, and rapper will.i.am, seated next to Leiweke, comforted Bryant and told him everything was going to be fine.
Bryant was OK, but the Lakers weren't and were booed off their own court, they played so bad.
Lakers forward Pau Gasol, expected to have his way with New Orleans because of his height advantage, was so awful that fans wearing purple and gold taunted him. Even Bryant made pointed remarks about how Gasol, who missed seven of his nine shots and scored just eight points, needs to be better on the big stage.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson admitted he was stunned, and he didn't have a very Zen-like theory for the Lakers' debacle.
"We're not very good in morning games," Jackson said. "Our guys just aren't that sharp all year. We really tried to get them going (Sunday). We asked them to come a couple of hours early, even to the arena, so they would be ready to go."
Bryant played 42 minutes Sunday, more than anyone else on either team, including Hornets guard Chris Paul.
Paul scored 33 points and added 14 assists, just three shy of the Lakers' team total of 17. The Lakers didn't switch defenders on Paul, and he dribbled around them with ease.
Still, Paul will always be overshadowed by anything that happens with Bryant. The neck injury happened seconds before halftime, and Paul didn't even see who was down. Quickly, he got an idea.
"(ABC) told me I was supposed to do the interview before halftime, and then they canceled on me," Paul said laughing.
Khloe Kardashian, the wife of forward Lamar Odom, got over the loss quickly, as she turned her tweeting efforts to focus on the reality television show she has with her husband, "Khloe & Lamar." After the loss, Khloe tweeted: "Man oh man ... Well at least I have something to be happy about KhloeAndLamar is tonight ..."
Clearly, she's not a true basketball wife yet, failing to realize how devastating such a loss can be for the Lakers. Let Bryant explain.
"This is dangerous, absolutely," Bryant said. "A series can be over quickly."
Especially when it comes to the tentative situation of the health of the Lakers and Bryant.
Earlier in the week, Bryant was assessed a $100,000 fine after he called an NBA official a homophobic slur. He failed to express remorse initially, but has since done so.
The Lakers have countless problems, and they're lucky Bryant's absence from the chair incident isn't one of them.
"You don't worry about him when he goes down," teammate Derek Fisher said. "You know that unless, God forbid, he wasn't breathing that he's going to get back up."
The Lakers didn't get back up after they were knocked down Sunday. Maybe they'll respond like the two-time defending champions they are on Wednesday in Game 2.
And some padding on those chairs wouldn't be a bad idea, either.
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