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By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports 9 hours, 47 minutes ago



LOS ANGELES -

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Yahoo! Sports

LOS ANGELES – Ron Artest bumped Kobe Bryant with his hip and bumped him again. He jammed his forearm into Bryant’s back. He leaned into him with his 262 pounds until, finally, the NBA’s MVP would take no more.

Bryant delivered a sharp chop to Artest’s arm. Artest pressed some more. Bryant chopped again. Artest drew closer, still, and Bryant came with more force, crunching his elbow into Artest’s sternum. The blow sent Artest flailing back a foot. He looked to the ref for help. No call came.

The message from Bryant and his Los Angeles Lakers was clear on Sunday night. They would not be bullied.

“I think his team relies on his energy and his ability to intimidate the other team,” Bryant would later say of Artest. “It’s my responsibility to take that from him, let my team know that’s not going to happen.”

The Houston Rockets had traded for Artest for games like this, to chase Bryant, hound him, make him work, and on this night it mattered not. The Lakers spotted the Rockets a 16-point lead, kicked the dust off their own legs then ran to a 111-82 victory, a stunning 45-point turnaround over the game’s final 35 minutes.

Afterward, Bryant said the victory “didn’t really say much.” , the Lakers’ rout of Houston officially put the rest of the league on notice: The road to the championship still goes through last season’s two finalists.

The rest of the West can blame the Celtics for this. Losing in last season’s NBA Finals gave the Lakers a renewed sense of purpose. Losing the way they lost gave them an edge. The Lakers extended the Finals to six games, but it felt like they were swept in four, especially after Boston closed out the series with a 39-point victory. They were too soft, too fragile. They couldn’t defend. The Lakers heard it all over the summer.