The opportunity for Kobe Bryant to go for glory was right in his hands, literally, but the game’s best active closer fluffed it.

Bryant was presented the chance to tie the game or take the lead against the Orlando Magic with less than 30 seconds left, to launch a shot that would place the LA Lakers in a historically insurmountable position of being 3-0 up in the NBA Finals.

But the Mamba fumbled the ball and lost it. Mickael Pietrus got hold of the rock, and Bryant had no choice but to intentionally foul the Frenchman for two freethrows that would extend the Magic's lead to four and give them the victory.

Kobe was so incensed with his inability to convert in the crunch that he ignored his prone teammate Pau Gasol, who had earlier dived for the ball after Dwight Howard swiped it away from Bryant as he tried to get around a double-team. Gasol immediately shoved the ball into Kobe's hands, the man many in the league would approve of taking the game's final shot.

Just not on this particular night. On this occasion, given a second chance to end the game his way, pardoned by everyone for several costing mistakes earlier in the game just for this one shot, Bryant could not even finish the play.

He lost the ball.

The best finisher in the game almost threw a tantrum after his foul, nearly landing a foot on the fallen Gasol, whom he did not offer assistance. He did not pick his teammates up, and failed his comrades-at-arms.

After Gasol pilfered the ball from Dwight Howard with three and a half minutes left, Bryant missed the runner on the ensuing play. With less than two minutes left, Kobe bricked a trey that could have given LA the lead. Less than a minute left, he clanked one of two freethrows. And with just seconds remaining on the clock, Kobe failed to convert two last-gasp three-pointers before finally nailing a meaningless lay-in close to the buzzer.

You would have to go way back to the late ‘90s to a Kobe rockin' old school Lakers gear, when he was a prodigy shooting airballs against Utah in 1997 or missing pressure freethrows against San Antonio in 1999, to find a version of Kobe Bean Bryant performing so miserably in the playoff crunch. Since the turn of the millennium, Kobe has been accumulating highlight after highlight that he's featured regularly on ESPN Classics.

"I'm used to coming through in those situations," said Bryant, the frozen mask he's put on for the past week replaced with a look of frustration, his fingers tapping on the table. "The team trusts me to come through in those situations and it just didn't happen tonight."

Phil Jackson smiled when asked about Kobe's collapse, getting philosophical as usual.

"You know, we're all frail as humans," Jackson mused.

Lamar Odom spoke even less of the matter.

"It happens," he said.

It even happened to the best of the best, on the same side of the court in the Amway Arena, when Michael Jordan lost possession of the ball after Nick Anderson stole the ball from behind in the 1995 Eastern Conference Finals.

That very mistake gave Jordan the motivation to work out like a demon in the offseason. We'll see what this breakdown leads Kobe to. On a side note, another lesson Bryant could glean from this game is that expending too much energy too soon could leave him with too little juice come crunch time.

The Black Mamba used up all his tricks in the first quarter alone. For the first six minutes of Game 3, Kobe was content to let everyone get in on the action. Then he decided he needed some quality time with the ball.

Starting at the 5:41 mark of the first quarter he put up nine shots and scored 17 points over the next five minutes and 10 seconds, culminating in a 3-pointer-plus-foul for a four-point play. He hit all manner of shots in between, managing to slip a glance to the corner of the court where Tiger Woods and Spike Lee were sitting after hitting an impossible 3-pointer.

Then he got cold on the shooting front. Ice cold. After taking his customary second-quarter rest he did not score for 32 consecutive Lakers' possessions, even though the Magic made him work just as hard.

"I thought they really started coming hard at him," Jackson said. "Howard was consistently coming at him on shots, making it difficult. He never really got in rhythm again the same way."

Jackson reiterated that he thought Bryant was running on fumes, and even considered keeping him out of the game for more than the first five minutes of the final quarter, but was force to bring back his star after the Lakers fell nine points behind.

After making seven of his first nine shots Bryant made only four of his next 16, finishing with 31 points. He also missed five of his 10 free throws -- as many misses as Orlando's Dwight Howard had in 16 attempts.

On a night that the Magic set an NBA Finals record for shooting in a half and in a game, the Lakers still could have stolen it with freethrows, or a couple more Gasol touches.

While rebounds weren't abundant on a night the Lakers made more than half of their shots as well, Howard managed to collect 14 while no Laker had more than Ariza's seven.

It's one reason why the Lakers didn't want to blame the loss on Bryant.

"We do everything together," Odom said. "That's why we made it this far. Win together, lose together. He's one guy I want to be in a foxhole with every time, win lose or draw, that's who I want to be with."

Still, Kobe fell short on his mission to win a championship since the departure of Shaq. The Black Mamba got his shot blocked in Game 2 as he tried to mow down the entire Magic defence in crunch time, then let Courtney Lee slip by him for the potential game-deciding shot at the buzzer.

Bryant has now become only the fourth player to rack up 100 points and 24 assists in the first three games of the NBA Finals.

Things used to be easier for Kobe earlier in the decade when Shaquille O'Neal would score big and early then Bryant would deliver the killing blow. Bryant can do both on his own, as he has found out in this series.

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