Arenas Won't Be Denied

Wizard Isn't Worried About Slight From Lakers' Bryant

Gilbert Arenas said he didn't have much time to talk following the first practice after the best week of his professional career. He had to rush home to celebrate the first birthday of his daughter, Izela, for whom he was lucky enough to snare a highly sought-after Elmo TMX doll, among other presents. Arenas promised to let his little girl play with the cake, mush the icing around and just enjoy herself because "she's celebrating her first birthday and her first Christmas," he said.

Arenas has a lot to celebrate this holiday season, too. In leading the Washington Wizards to a 3-1 road trip with wins over the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns, Arenas became just the third player in NBA history to record a 60-point game and a 50-point game in the same week, joining the rarefied air of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He also managed to record the first- and third-highest scoring outings in franchise history, dropping a career-high 60 points in his home town of Los Angeles and a US Airways Center-record 54 in Phoenix.

Arenas's scoring binge also helped push the Wizards within 1 1/2 games of Orlando for first place in the Southeast Division. His shoe commercial for Adidas is in heavy rotation and led him to say with a grin yesterday that he is "finally getting some love a little bit."

Emphasis on little bit, because no matter what he does, Arenas finds more material for the boulder-sized chip on his shoulder. His career game came one night after a fight between the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, one night before Carmelo Anthony received a 15-game suspension and two days before Allen Iverson was traded to Denver, leaving the accomplishment with limited shelf life.

"Truthfully, it's always something going wrong with me," Arenas, who ranks third in the league with 30.1 points per game, said after practice yesterday. "I score 60, Kobe downplays my 60 like it's nothing. It happens. At the end of the day, I'm in the record book."

Following the Wizards' 147-141 overtime victory, Bryant questioned Arenas's shot selection, credited the bulk of his scoring total to taking 27 free throws and said Arenas had "no conscience."

Asked if it hurt to hear criticism from Bryant -- his childhood idol and a player whose poster hung in his bedroom when he was growing up in Los Angeles -- Arenas shrugged and said he didn't care. He then said: "If someone downgrades, they really care; it really hurt them. That's how I look at it. If he didn't comment, he didn't acknowledge it. But for him to comment, I really got to him. A great player like him, you have to do something to that level to get his respect. Now it's going to be one of those games, he's going to write on his calendar, 'I've got to get back at him.' Before, it was, 'Who cares about that team? Who cares about that player?' Now it's, 'Let me circle his name with the rest of them.' "

Later, when discussing his higher profile, Arenas shot back at Bryant with some words that will surely add more interest to the rematch with the Lakers on Feb. 3 at Verizon Center.

"I'm glad what I'm doing is on national television so they can finally see what I did in the past; my 29 [points per game last season] is not a fluke. What I did in the playoffs is not a fluke. What I've done the last five years is not a fluke," Arenas said. "Everybody says, 'Oh, he's not better than this person, he's not better than that person.' But if you go year by year, number-wise, what's the difference between me and Kobe? He had Shaq. He got three rings. Other than that, my numbers are blowing his out of the water the first six years in the league."

Not quite. In his sixth season, Arenas has a career average of 22 points per game. Bryant, who entered the league directly out of high school, averaged 18.5 in his first five seasons, playing alongside Shaquille O'Neal. But despite two all-star appearances, Arenas is obviously tired of being slighted.

"Before the season, I said it was the takeover and that I was going to make a stamp for myself," he said. "I'm living up to my word. I know I can score with the best of them. I'm just finally getting the opportunity to get seen."