LOS ANGELES — When Kobe Bryant was just a boy shooting balled-up socks — two pairs rolled into one worked just right — at a crayon mark on the wall for a basket, it was a whole different ballgame.

Now that he's the marked man of the NBA, defenses stack up between him and the basket in an even more imposing way than Bryant's mom announcing it was time for bed. He no longer has the simple life, especially in the current NBA Finals against Boston's league-best defense that openly uses the term "wall" in reference to protecting its basket.

The Lakers lost the first two games before Bryant decided to turn his motor on and leave it on Tuesday night in Game 3. He got where he wanted and needed to go. He scored 36 of the Lakers' 87 points. He won.

"You could tell from the first quarter that Kobe was going to be aggressive," Boston's Kevin Garnett said, "and he wasn't going to shoot too many jump shots."

Now, however, it's still nowhere near bedtime. The Lakers need three more victories to finish this right, and it's highly unlikely Bryant can bang his head against that wall as hard and as often in Game 4 on Thursday night. He also played energetic defense Tuesday on all of Boston's best perimeter players and logged 45-plus minutes — half a quarter more than Pau Gasol, who played the next-most Lakers minutes.

All told, Bryant might have expended more energy Tuesday night than he did 2 1/2 years ago during his 81-point explosion. And that's why he was chilling in the Lakers' locker room this afternoon while all his teammates were on the court, working on jump-shooting drills.

Lakers logic goes this way: Bryant's energy inspired the Lakers' second efforts in Game 3 — Boston coach Doc Rivers cited three Lakers offensive rebounds in the last five minutes, all turned into points, as demoralizing for the Celtics — but Game 4 has to be a team effort.

"Can't have two guys playing basketball and the rest of the guys not," Lakers forward Vladimir Radmanovic said, crediting Sasha Vujacic for his support of Bryant.

For one thing, the Celtics will swarm Bryant with renewed vigilance.

"They can probably get him back in a position where they'll feel more comfortable with what he gets done," Lakers guard Derek Fisher said.

But if the Lakers can win Game 4 in a group effort — and Boston point guard Rajon Rondo's sore ankle should lead to more easy baskets off turnovers — then there will be two days off before Game 5, also at Staples Center. Then, theoretically, Bryant could go full tilt again to push the Lakers to a 3-2 series lead.

All that said, the Lakers theorized that back in the 2004 NBA Finals they could grab one victory out of three tries in Detroit and win the championship with Games 6 and 7 at home. It turned out that those big-picture rationalizations didn't matter one bit if the Lakers were unable to graduate to advanced-level triangle offense and move the whole formation up in response to Detroit's overplaying defense.

Boston's defense is being similarly aggressive in this series against a Lakers team that just plopped Gasol in the middle of the triangle in February. It remains to be seen whether the Lakers can be sharp enough to create offense any way other than Bryant revving it up on his own.

"We'll be OK with some adjustments, just minor adjustments," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "A lot of what we're trying to do is get these guys activated early in the offense."

There will be a lot of pressure on Gasol, new to the offense, and Lamar Odom, never a natural in the offense, to help Bryant more than they did in Game 3, when they combined for 13 points on 5-of-18 shooting with eight turnovers. Fisher is shooting just 34.8 percent in the NBA Finals. Luke Walton, just 1 for 7 from the field in the series, was loudly criticized by anti-Boston courtside fan Spike

Lee, after Walton blew another layup Tuesday night, said: "Make a shot!"

The onus will be on Bryant, though, to give his teammates both help and room to improve — a prominent theme in his MVP season. Along those lines, Bryant responded to Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's criticism of his leadership style by laughingly saying: "Go, Yankees."

Then Bryant added: "Look, I know my team."