Orange County Register

LOS ANGELES — When one of of the sport’s legends is around, you never know what you’re going to see.

Kobe Bryant offered a reminder of that in the first quarter of the Lakers’ 101-85 romp over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night at Staples Center.

Bryant tossed in a rainbow shot from behind the backboard on a terrible-angle shot he only attempted when he thought he was being fouled. It was recorded in the books as a 3-foot layup, but it was hardly so simple.  The twisting shot falling with 2:01 left in the quarter was so remarkable that when the quarter was over, teammate Andrew Bynum couldn’t take the smile off his face and was still pointing to the spot on the floor from where Bryant let it go.

Such a shot used to be illegal, but the NBA changed the rule recently when there were too many game stoppages with imaginary backboard extensions in all directions. So now it’s only illegal to shoot the ball right over the backboard from behind the basket. Boston’s Rajon Rondo hit a similar shot to Bryant’s earlier this month to beat a first-quarter buzzer.

Bryant swished a somewhat similar 10-foot shot late in the third quarter and is comfortable shooting from bad angles because of how often he has shot baseline fadeaways with defenders pushing him out of bounds. But Bryant actually made a totally different circus shot just before this first-quarter buzzer Sunday night, rebounding and shooting left-handed in one motion without a second to spare.

That shot banked in for a 35-16 Lakers lead, and Bryant wound up with 13 of his 26 points in the first quarter. He also had seven assists.

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