Now here’s something terrific: Following the Lakers’$2 109–96 loss to the Celtics on Sunday, Kobe Bryant reportedly approached teammate Pau Gasol and asked him to play harder, borrowing a pep talk from one of this year’s Best Picture nominees.
Kobe tells ESPN:
“When I’m out there being aggressive and doing my thing, he needs to follow suit and just be just as aggressive which is hard for him because it’s kind of against his nature. But I think tonight was a good step … Even when he was in Memphis and he was the go-to guy, he was always very nice. Very white swan. I need him to be black swan.â€
Gasol, a forward, was filling in as center on Sunday for an injured Andrew Bynum (who we guess would be the Lakers’ Beth Macintyre/Winona Ryder, to keep this metaphor going). Anyway, Ron Artest slipped an Ecstasy tablet into Gasol’s water bottle, then Kobe told him to go home and touch himself.