A simple, handy-dandy rule of thumb for deciding who wins an NBA game is that if one team makes 60 percent of its shots, it's going to win.
No matter who's taking the shots.
In Game 4 of the playoffs, Saturday, the big scorer just happened to be Kobe Bryant.
OK, it was no accident. Bryant's 38 points in the Lakers' 108-94 win over the Jazz ranks with "Madonna Dating Younger Man" on the surprise-o-meter.
But does it really matter who's lighting up the Jazz?
It could be Jack Nicholson taking the shots. Now the Jazz are down to desperate measures. If they want to win the series, they'll have to win twice in Los Angeles and ... never mind.
So it's a 3-1 Laker lead, which likely means just one more trip to the land of endless summer — which is exactly what the Jazz are staring at. Bryant took care of all but the final details by making 14 of his first 18 shots before standing down. He finished with an 11-basket improvement over his abysmal 5-for-24 shooting performance in Game 3.
In the course of three days, the Jazz got a command performance of "Bad Kobe, Good Kobe."
The bad part being a once-in-a-Laker-blue-moon kind of thing.
"Don't ever think a guy of Kobe Bryant's ability will not fight back," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. "And when he has to fight back, you know he's coming with both barrels."
It was never a question Bryant would revive. The larger issue is how and why others have been doing it, too. In Game 1, the Lakers shot 56 percent for the game — close enough to the watermark — and 66 percent in the first half, led by Trevor Ariza who made eight of 10 shots. Game 2 included an 86 percent first quarter and 60 percent for the game. In that outing, Ariza made five of six, Pau Gasol nine of 11.
That accounted for two Laker wins.
In Game 3, L.A. shot only 37 percent, which explains the Jazz's only win so far.
Then came Saturday's 70 percent first quarter, 58 percent for the first half.
After allowing the Lakers to look movie-star marvelous in the first two games, the Jazz went home for Thursday's contest with a clear plan in mind: make things ugly and ponderous. It seemed logical. Winning a beauty contest in Los Angeles is tough. Better to make it into a food fight.
"This was more our type of game," said Williams after Thursday's win. "You know, grind-it-out defensive game."
He went on to label the Lakers' 60-something shooting in the first halves of Games 1 and 2 "unacceptable."
"You're just not going to win ballgames if a team shoots that against you," he added.
Bryant scored the Lakers' first 11 points and totaled 24 in the first half, Saturday, making 10 of his first 13 shots. Not that they expected anything different. Everyone, from Sloan on down to the guy selling Cokes seemed to sense Bryant would go off.
Working in the Jazz's favor was the return of center Mehmet Okur, who has been out since April 13 with a strained hamstring. It never hurts to have your second-leading scorer back.
Or maybe it does.
"It'd be good for us," Laker coach Phil Jackson told media after practice, Friday. "I think that's what we need."
He went on to say the addition would motivate his team to "play the way we should play."
Interesting concept.
Very Zen.
Clearly, Okur wasn't himself. He was a non-factor, missing his only three attempts and getting two rebounds.
Meanwhile, the Jazz threw everything at Bryant but the ice machine — which actually might have cooled him down.
Didn't matter.
"We never have been able to stop him since I've been here," growled Sloan to ESPN.
Though the Lakers eventually settled into a respectable 52 percent shooting night, the damage was done much earlier, back when Bryant was shooting the lights out.
Which in turn left the Jazz sitting in the dark.
E-mail: rock@desnews.com