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Games like this are why you can't trust box scores. You could look at the numbers, see that Kobe Bryant scored 49 points, and think you had the story of the Lakers' 122-107 victory over the Nuggets in Game 2 of this opening round playoff series. You'd have no idea that Bryant and the Lakers were at their best during a five-minute stretch at the end of the third quarter when Kobe made only one shot.

That's when he took over the game in a manner reminiscent of a guy sitting in the baseline seats at Staples Center: Magic Johnson.
The score was tied when Bryant found Luke Walton for a layup and a foul. The next time down the court, Bryant fed Vladimir Radmanovic for a dunk. Three possessions later he threw the ball to Walton for a 3-pointer. All that giving brought him a gift in return, when Pau Gasol tossed an alley-oop that Bryant appeared to stop in mid-air before throwing it down. And Bryant closed out the quarter with a pass to Sasha Vujacic for another 3-pointer. Four of Bryant's 10 assists in that little stretch.

A 10-point advantage for the Lakers heading into the fourth quarter. Kobe's quarter.

"It's just about forcing them to make choices," Bryant said. "I knew in the third quarter they were going to try to zero in on me a little bit, try to Ttake me out of my groove.

"We're very used to those types of defenses. So my teammates are used to making cuts and taking advantage of it. I felt like it kind of softened them up for me to go back at it in the fourth."

A bunch of Walton and Vujacic body blows before Bryant could unleash the haymakers. The game's greatest closer put this one away with a flourish exceptional even by his standards, scoring 19 points in less than 4 ½ minutes.

After Bryant hit a 3-pointer to give him 46 points and put the Lakers up by 17 with 2 ½ minutes remaining, he took advantage of a pause while Carmelo Anthony shot free throws. Bryant walked by Marv Albert and Reggie Miller in the sideline announcer seats, pulled out his imaginary six-shooters and blew them off.

Nuggets guard J.R. Smith made the mistake of saying something to him, which only brought more pain. Bryant went at Smith the next time down the court, got a layup and-one to get to 49 points, one shy of the playoff career high he set against Phoenix in 2006.

"Better learn not to talk to me," Bryant said of Smith's jabbering. "You shake the tree, a leopard's gonna fall out."

The Nuggets shouldn't say anything to anyone right now. They picked up two more technical fouls in the fourth quarter, the first at a time when the Laker lead was still in single digits.

"As a team, I think we lost our focus, lost our composure," Carmelo Anthony said.

Sometimes it seems as if the Nuggets don't care if they win the series. In the second quarter George Karl sat Allen Iverson for what seemed as long as an afternoon at the DMV (in reality it was four minutes and 15 seconds). And even though Lakers backup big man Ronny Turiaf sat out with a sore throat, the Nuggets didn't make a point of attacking the Laker frontcourt players to get them in foul trouble.

Instead it was Denver's Kenyon Martin who fouled out halfway through the fourth quarter.

The Lakers know their way to win, and it requires getting everyone involved through the first three quarters. In the first quarter, Bryant had 20 points but the Lakers only had a one-point lead to show for it.

"Defensively, we couldn't find the combination of what to do," Phil Jackson said. "We were just a step behind defensively, they were attacking with a lot of confidence."

It wasn't that Bryant dominated the ball. He got transition baskets. He scored when the defense rotated away from him. One time a loose ball bounced his way, he gathered it up, didn't see anyone around and he calmly shot a 3-pointer.

And when a guy's shooting 60 percent, common sense dictates he should be taking all the shots. But that's not what got the Lakers to the top of the Western Conference this year. This was the season when a three-point drop in his scoring average coincided with a 15-win increase in the standings.

"You definitely play better when you're touching the ball and you're involved," said Walton, who had another big playoff performance with 18 points, seven rebounds and five assists. "Basketball is so much of a rhythm game and just being in the flow, not even realizing what's going on. When you're involved and touching the ball and making passes and making plays, it makes you involved in defense. You can read the court better, you can do all of the little things. It definitely helps."

Those were the Lakers of the third quarter, much more similar to the way they played this season.

Now the Nuggets need to make more adjustments. They went with Martin on Bryant again, but replaced Anthony Carter with Linas Kleiza in the starting lineup to avoid the size mismatches that allowed Pau Gasol to score 36 points in the first game. They tried zone defense. They put Smith on Bryant. None of it worked.

"The way he was going we could have put 10 people on the court and it probably wouldn't have been able to stop him," Allen Iverson said.

It's not about throwing everyone at Bryant. It's the way he has used every player on his team that's made the Lakers more of a threat this year, and certainly a class above the Nuggets in the first two games of this series.

J.A. Adande joined ESPN.com as an NBA columnist in August 2007 after 10 years with the Los Angeles Times. Click here to e-mail J.A.