text: You can play around more in the regular season than in the playoffs. In the Playoffs, you have to play a more complete brand of basketball to win. Phil must have made it abundantly clear that if Kobe didn't get the other players involved, they wouldn't stand a chance.\n\nAlso, seeing Steve Nash win MVP could have done two things to Kobe. It could have made him think that if Nash was considered, by the majority of the voters, to be more influential in making his team win, by passing as much or more than scoring, then maybe he would too. OR it's possible that the ultra-comptetive Kobe has come out to prove that he can play a more sharing, Nash-like game better than Nash can. Or maybe he's just trying to show he can play a more balanced game, to show that he should have been voted MVP. Or maybe this is part of his attempt to clean up his image. Maybe he's trying to overcome the stigma against him that he doesn't pass, and he's doing it on a national stage where everyone can witness it.\n\nMaybe he's learning to trust his teammates. Maybe his teammates are giving him more of a reason to trust them. \n\nThe Lakers are a franchise built around Kobe at this point. Late game, he is their go to guy. He is always put in a position to win the game at the end, bring them back, or keep the lead up in close situations. Maybe it's sinking in that it's his team, and he's not feeling as pressured to prove it is. Maybe he had enough big individual scoring games this year that he feels his talent can't be called into question if he doesn't score.\n\nWho knows. Just know that Kobe's competetiveness and ego are probably the driving factors in this change, since they seem to have driven the rest of his noticeable behavior so far. Since winning is how success is measured in the Playoffs, he could satisfy his ego and competetiveness more through winning than individual performance - although one could argue that his individual performance is more impressive now, despite the decline in scoring.