As finals loom, Webber says he admires Bryant's drive

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- While the Los Angeles Lakers were sweeping the Sacramento Kings out of last season's playoffs, Chris Webber limped on two sprained ankles.

Webber silently promised to learn from the experience, and the chance to use those lessons will come when the Kings meet the Lakers on today in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.

The series will be a defining moment for Webber, who has the skills, money and fame of an elite player -- but none of the team success that separates Kobe Bryant from his peers.

"It's never good to take a beating like that, but we all saw what great players can do in big situations," Webber said. "Kobe's got that killer thing, that instinct. You've got to admire that thing when you see it."

Perhaps uninterested in the absence of a serious challenge, the Lakers didn't play spectacular basketball in the first two rounds -- but Bryant carried them to victory down the stretch of several games.

Averaging 26.1 points, Bryant is the playoffs' leading scorer among players whose teams are still alive. But Bryant's numbers don't reveal his game-changing ability -- and the fear felt by opponents who see him on the court with the game on the line.

"If we're down by 10, we have to fight to win the game," Bryant said Friday before the Lakers traveled north to Sacramento. "Hopefully, that won't happen, (but) when the fourth quarter comes, I turn it up a notch. I read the defenses in the first 3 1/2 quarters. Then you take advantage of what you've read."

Doug Christie, who will be matched up against Bryant on defense, has a goal: "To keep him a little bit out of his rhythm until the fourth quarter, at least. That's all you can really do."

Last season, Bryant scored 36 points in Game 3 of the Lakers' conference semifinal against Sacramento. After rushing home to Los Angeles on the off day to be with his ailing wife, he returned to Arco Arena and had 48 points and 16 rebounds in the series-clinching victory.

"Kobe is the toughest player in the league down the stretch," Kings coach Rick Adelman said. "He's got that striving in him that as a coach, you just can't teach. Everybody knows it, but you can't do anything about it. He's as close to Michael as you can get without all of Michael's experience."

There was no need for Adelman to apply a last name to a comparison that's never made lightly. The league's next dynasty after Jordan's Bulls would be halfway to Chicago's total of six championships with a ring this spring.

It's enough to wipe the smile off Webber's face. After nine NBA seasons, he is in his first conference final. Though the Kings are built for a long run of success, Webber has his best chance to win a title that would erase frustration from his years on poor teams.

Webber's chance to show his mettle was compromised last season, when two severely sprained ankles -- and the resulting cortisone shots -- kept him at half strength during the Lakers' sweep.

"The doctors told me I shouldn't have been playing," Webber said. "If you saw the way I was running up and down the court, you knew it, but if I'd said anything, that would have been crying."

Webber faced the Lakers just once during the regular season. Injuries kept him out of the other three games, including the Kings' lone victory over Los Angeles early in the season.

So far, the playoffs have been rewarding and frustrating for Webber. He averaged more than 25 points against Dallas in the conference semifinals, displaying a willingness to go inside for difficult baskets while also shooting well from the perimeter.

But Webber also drew an alarming number of offensive fouls, and he fouled out twice against the Mavericks.

Though he's reluctant to admit it, Webber feels officials don't give him the respect afforded Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal -- but he also readily admits he hasn't earned it with rings yet.

"You find yourself second-guessing and thinking about every move you make," Webber said. "I don't even want the ball in the post against a guard now, because you can just see them standing there, waiting to flop. As many offensive fouls as I've got in the playoffs, I expect Shaq to get four a game."

Perhaps because they feel a similar responsibility to carry their teams, Bryant and Webber share a fondness for playing on the road. Bryant will get all the animosity he can handle in Sacramento, where the Arco crowd is sure to be frenzied.

"I don't feel a burden," Bryant said. "The way that it can become a big deal is if we allow Sacramento to feed off that energy. ... There's no fear. It's just basketball."

NETS-CELTICS: Paul Pierce proclaimed the Nets can't stop him, a boast even New Jersey admits might be true.

His Celtics co-star, Antoine Walker, has feuded with New Jersey coach Byron Scott, whose distaste for Boston dates to his playing days.

Kenny Anderson has closed the book on his formative NBA years in New Jersey, saying he is no longer the self-centered player who entered the league 11 years ago as one of the Nets' potential saviors.

The Eastern Conference finals might not have the glamour and star power of its all-California counterpart in the West. But there is a history between the teams, along with some running of the mouths, that could help make it almost as interesting as the Kings-Lakers matchup billed by some as the true NBA championship series.

"They had a great season like us. They had a big turnaround, too," Scott said. "They've done a fantastic job to get to this point. It's going to be a war."

No team has had a bigger about-face than the Nets, who flip-flopped last season's 26-52 record and went 52-26 this season to earn the No. 1 seeding in the East.

About the only team whose turnaround compares is Boston, which also missed the playoffs last season while enduring Rick Pitino's departure.

No matter who wins this series, which begins Sunday at 4:30 p.m., it will mark the first time since 1978 that a team that failed to qualify for the postseason the previous year will make it to the NBA Finals.

Pierce, the league's third-leading scorer, believes he's the main reason the Celtics will eliminate the Nets.

"I don't think they have anybody that can really defend me," Pierce said.

Replied Scott: "The numbers right now would support that. He has been able to score on us, no doubt about that. He has had some terrific games, but that's regular season. The regular season is over with. This is the playoffs. If he can do it again in the playoffs, all we can do is take our hats off to him."

Pierce averaged 37 points in four games against New Jersey this season, with Boston winning three of them. That includes a 46-point outburst in the second half and overtime of a Dec. 1 game.

Pierce had 30 when the Celtics came into the Meadowlands on April 7 and defeated the Nets 102-90, temporarily preventing New Jersey from clinching the best record on the East.

"They are going to make it a little more difficult on me," Pierce said. "I would hope they would try, being I had success against them in the regular season."

The Nets will use Kerry Kittles, Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin as some of the defenders on Pierce. Scott said he has no plans to double-team Pierce, thereby leaving someone open on the perimeter.

No team still playing shoots as many 3-pointers as the Celtics, who can get points there from Pierce, Walker, Rodney Rogers, Tony Delk and Erick Strickland.

Pierce shot 21-for-28 from 3-point range against the Nets.

Scott walked onto the court during a fracas in a Nets-Celtics game earlier this season and was yelled at by Walker. The outspoken Scott later said Walker "hasn't done anything in this league" and could not tell him what to do.

"I still feel the same way about them as I did when I played. It hasn't changed that much," said Scott, whose personal history against the Celtics includes the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson era, when he was a member of the Lakers. "That green and white still doesn't sit that well with me."

The matchup difficulties go both ways, and Boston might have a hard time stopping the Nets at some spots. The most obvious is point guard, where Kidd will try to use his edge in talent over Anderson to get the Nets clicking.

New Jersey also has an edge at center, where Todd MacCulloch has a height advantage over Tony Battie and is a more efficient offensive player.

New Jersey struggles in a slowdown style but thrives when Kidd is able to push the pace. He is surrounded by players capable of finishing on the fast break and hitting open jumpers.

"It should be exciting. Both teams like to explore and get easy baskets when the situations present," said Kidd, who praised Anderson for his play in Boston's playoff victories against Philadelphia and Detroit.

When Anderson arrived in New Jersey as the No. 2 overall pick in the 1991 draft, he was expected to help lead the Nets to the position they are in now. But Anderson was traded away to Charlotte in 1996 for Kendall Gill, and he had stints with two other teams before going to Boston in 1998.

"I've never been in this situation," Anderson said. "I'm going all-out."

These teams have a recent history of playing close games. None of their meetings this season was decided by more than 12 points, and the Nets' lore of misfortune includes the memorable moment when Milt Palacio beat them with a prayer.

On Dec. 28, 2000, the Nets needed only to inbound the ball toward their own basket with 1.8 seconds left to seal a two-point win. But Lucious Harris threw a pass to Aaron Williams near midcourt that was picked off by Palacio (who was sent to Phoenix earlier this season in the trade for Rogers and Delk). Palacio threw up a 30-footer as he fell down, and the miracle shot went in to give Boston the unlikeliest of one-point victories.

Both teams were laughingstocks at the time, but that is not the case anymore.

-- From wire reports