So Boston limped through the regular season, claimed the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and only then, finally, put it in high gear. When the season finally ended in the L.A. Forum, with balloons set to cascade throughout the arena and Laker champagne on ice to toast L.A.’s first-ever title, it was Russell’s Celtics who were celebrating their 11th championship in 13 years–and the swan song of the NBA’s most remarkable dynasty.

Russell was a rare master of turning it on and off. Still, it was quite reasonable to assume, as this current NBA season unfolded, that the Lakers might go to school on that historic lesson and try to replicate it. Indeed with an aging, injured and oft-battered Shaquille O’Neal at the heart of their quest for a fourth consecutive championship, the Russell model–especially to a basketball scholar like Phil Jackson–might have seemed like the only intelligent approach. And one that, despite a conference filled with formidable teams, would appear to have very good prospects for success. After all, the Lakers have already proved their championship mettle in recent seasons by winning key playoff games–including that critical seventh last year in Sacramento–on the enemy’s court.

Whether or not it was a deliberate stratagem or a reluctant path inflicted upon them by necessity, L.A. dug itself a deep enough hole that it now faces a bottom-up run as its sole remaining option to defend its title. Though the Lakers have been playing winning basketball ball of late, riding Kobe Bryant’s unconscionably hot hand, there are limits to how far they can ascend in the powerhouse West. Even a blistering .750 winning clip for the remainder of the season would be unlikely to boost L.A. much higher than fifth place in the conference. That would force L.A. to beat some combination of three teams among Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio and Dallas–all absent home-court advantage.

Of course, the Lakers’ greatest advantage is that the NBA remains the most dynastic of major pro leagues. For more than a decade now, almost every team that won a championship managed to successfully defend that title at least once. The “Bad Boys” of Detroit, Hakeem’s Houston, the current Lakers and two different version’s of Michael Jordan’s Bulls all pulled off, at the least, back-to-back championships. (San Antonio was the lone exception.)

While that may not match the level of thrills and miracle resurrections offered by the NFL’s annual crapshoot, it is a tribute to how very difficult it is to ascend to NBA-championship level. Few teams ever measure up. An NBA title requires at least a pair of superstars, who understand and accept who’s Batman and who’s Robin, as well as a bunch of complementary players who grasp their roles fully and embrace them completely. And it is not remotely as simple as that sounds.

Despite much annual Sturm und Drang, producing some delicious sideshows worthy of the Hollywood setting, the Lakers have succeeded in mastering exactly that formula. Each championship season, Kobe ultimately came, with varying degrees of reluctance, to accept that the offence revolved around and ran though Shaq. And a host of solid, veteran pros named Fox, Fischer and Horry bolstered by some even more anonymous troops did the rest.

But the Lakers’ championship run is now finished. With Shaq once again gimpy and saving himself for a belated spring offensive, Kobe has been unleashed with a vengeance. It is now unmistakably Kobe’s team, and there appears no way to put that genie back in the bottle. As a result, the triangle offense now resembles a ragged semicircle, with Kobe roaming the perimeter, firing from here, there and everywhere punctuated by occasional mad dashes to the basket. It is a most extraordinary repertoire, unrivaled highlight-film fodder, unmatched by any of the other hotshots gunners in the league.

And the inevitable result has been much talk of an MVP award for Kobe. But there are no MVPs off .500 teams. And Kobe’s one-man band will never be a championship formula any more than are the solo acts of Allen Iverson in Philly or Vince Carter in Toronto. The rest of the team winds up standing around just watching on offense, a passivity that can’t be easily shaken on the defensive end. And no matter how many 40-plus evenings Kobe puts up in a row–it’s now seven and counting–that won’t get the job done when he surrenders 53 to an Allen Houston, as he did the other night in a home loss to the sub-.500 Knicks. That may be a certain kind of Showtime, but one that is destined to close in May.