Bryant Riveting in Performance

With his team down by 10 at halftime Tuesday night, when losing could end the season and the Lakers’ five-year run, an already physically and emotionally drained Kobe Bryant wanted to have a brief word with his teammates. “I told the guys,” he said afterward, “ ‘It’s just a game.’ ”

That’s not what you normally hear for a halftime speech in Game 4 of a playoff series against the defending league champion, but nothing about Bryant’s season has been normal. Hours earlier he had pleaded not guilty to felony sexual assault charges in Eagle, Colo., then flown home to play one of the great games in NBA playoff history before an adoring crowd in a city accustomed to seeing everything, but still not knowing what to make of this melodrama. And there’s something particularly sobering about facing four years to life in prison if he’s found guilty that will make basketball, even high-stakes basketball, seem like what it is: a game.

After having about as enjoyable an evening as he could under the circumstances Tuesday night, after scoring 42 points in a winning performance both riveting and revelatory, Bryant was asked whether he has a greater appreciation of the game because of the more serious drama in his life.

He paused for several seconds, smiled and said, “Yeah, [basketball] takes your mind away from so many things.... When you love your profession, when you love your job, it’s an escape, no matter what that profession is.”

His voice rose barely above a whisper, and he said he had slept for an hour after arriving at Staples Center, then felt nearly devoid of energy at times during the game, in which he had to pace himself after two- or three-minute bursts of play.

Bryant said he likes the confrontations with San Antonio’s Bruce Bowen, perhaps the toughest defender he has to face in the Western Conference.

Only there can he operate with no lawyers, no accuser, none of the accuser’s family members. It’s just basketball, the thing he has loved since age 3 and now finds to be the only thing he can enjoy fully. Bryant said he had “flashbacks to when I was a kid,” on Tuesday night.

Nobody would ever use the word “rabid” to describe the crowds that have attended Laker games, either at the old Forum or at Staples Center. Yet, the games when Bryant flies back from Colorado to play have taken on a personality decidedly un-L.A. Tuesday night found people standing almost every time Bryant took a shot -- even on a technical-foul free throw -- in the second half. And by the time he had worked himself into a Jordanesque trance in the fourth quarter, and was draining shots that never touched the rim, people were exhorting and encouraging Bryant at a level you usually find in Green Bay or Portland, some small burg united by the one local team.

Spur Coach Gregg Popovich actually complimented his defenders, even though Bryant was unstoppable. “I got a couple of looks like, ‘You would like me to do what? Stop him?’ ”

Derek Fisher, Bryant’s teammate and backcourt mate since the two came into the league together eight years ago, said, “I told him, ‘This is totally amazing, what you can do under these circumstances.’ I just wanted him to know that.”