He shot poorly, but no rebounds, no rings. Riles was right.
I gotta give the Boogers credit though. Tough *** team. Allowed to be that way, but still tough. The best man to man on Kobe since Thabo (<-- joke for you, Pedro). The chubby guy on the Suns who's supposedly a scrappy defender got outworked by Ray F Allen of all people.
I thought you said you weren't a kobe homer. Its hard to believe that when you can't even admit kobe choked tonight.
If the lakers loss and kobe had the same exact performance and stat line, he would be answering questions of why he choked for the next year. If Peja shot 6 for 24 in a game 7, he would be called a choker even if he had 15 rebs.
On top of shooting 25% in the most important game of his career, he did not do anything else in the game other than reb. He did not create offense. He was clearly unsure of himself and nervous. Heck even the lakers radio station play by play guy said "kobe is clearly being affected by the game 7 nerves".
You also forget this is kobe bryant, the guy who is suppose to be the most clutch player alive. Doesn't he live for this moment? Isn't kobe suppose to be the guy that wills the lakers to victory. At one point he was clearly scared, dumping the ball off to someone else when the D was not closing in on him. He is not expected to bring zero offense in a huge game like this.
The turning point was when Phil sat out kobe because he was messing up the game. The other guys got to do their thing with Gasol and kobe came back in when the lakers gained momentum. He stunk so bad that phil had to sit him to have a chance. Thats what you call choke.