The slap could be heard from the floor high up into the seats. Kobe Bryant spun around to the baseline and Dwyane Wade slammed him hard from behind across the shoulders and the nose. It was like a family argument that had spilled over unpredictably and irretrievably.
The crowd groaned and gasped. A violent foul at an All-Star Game? What those fans didn’t realize was that this was a good thing.
“I obviously didn’t try to draw no blood, but I took a foul,” said Wade following a splendidly competitive 152-149 loss to the West Sunday night. “Kobe fouled me two times in a row, so he’s still got one up on me.”
Bryant’s conference was clobbering Wade’s by 96-81 when the latter decided he’d had enough and took it out at the expense of the former. In any other setting — a Game 4 of the playoffs or a pickup game over the summer — it would have been just another hard foul. But in the setting of this non-confrontational evening, the foul was a game-changer.
Bryant, expressionless, rubbed his nose while walking off the pain before shooting a free throw. He walked past Wade without making eye contact on his way to showing the referee a splattering of blood that necessitated a medical timeout. He came back and made the second free throw.
On this night when Bryant (271 points) surpassed Michael Jordan (262) to become the leading scorer in All-Star history, it was too easy to define them by caricature: Kobe as all serious and LeBron as fun, fun, fun. When they were introduced for this game, James and his East teammate Dwight Howard of the Magic emerged out of the white pre-game smoke dancing with their mouths open comically. When Bryant was introduced, his hands were in his pockets and his face refused so much as a smile. Everything about him at age 33 asserts that his joy comes from winning.
All-Star MVP. The 23-year-old tied a game-high of 36 points and added seven rebounds, three assists and three steals to help the West hold on for a 152-149 win over the East in Orlando.
