2:23PM
Lakers: Plenty of talent, very little heart
2:23 PM
Here are the conceivable excuses available for the Los Angeles Lakers, reputedly a basketball team of championship caliber, if not championship character.
* The game in Houston started at 9 p.m., past the Lakers’ bedtime.
* But 9 p.m. in Houston is only 7 p.m. in Los Angeles, so maybe the Lakers hadn’t awakened from their afternoon naps.
* The Lakers lost concentration because Yao Ming, unable to play, was a spectator, and rarely had been watched by anyone taller than an even 7 feet.
* The Lakers were so amused by the Nike commercial with Kobe and LeBron as Muppets characters, they couldn’t stop laughing until the Rockets were ahead 17-1.
* The Manny Ramirez situation has everyone in the L.A. area so distracted, nobody can think about anything else, Lakers included.
Yes, the Lakers will win Sunday and will take the series and move on to face Denver. But they shouldn’t. Not the way they stood around in Game 6 for the first six minutes.
You can’t call the Lakers gutless. They did rally to get within two points in the third quarter on Thursday night before losing, 95-80.
But you can call them heartless. No team with that much talent, with that much momentum, the Lakers having beaten Houston by 40 points on Tuesday night, should play that badly.
And you can call them clueless.
They were baffled by the Rockets’ Louis Scola, who scored 24 points, many of them on baskets about four inches from the rim. Scola’s from Argentina, so maybe the Lakers were looking for a guy with chaps and a Gaucho hat singing about Eva Peron.
The Lakers and Boston Celtics both have Game Sevens at home. The Celtics, the anti-Lakers, a team that scraps and hustles, earned that seventh game, showing more than enough fight in the loss at Orlando. No Kevin Garnett. Guys in foul trouble, but the Celts kept trying.
The Lakers earned a sneer. The Rockets were not only without Yao but also Tracy McGrady. And they had lost, 118-78, two evenings earlier. They had the right to, as Sinatra sang, roll up into a big ball and die. Instead it was the Lakers who were in a funk.
Phil Jackson, the Lakers coach, has nine NBA titles (six with Michael Jordan), so seemingly he understands not just the technical side of basketball but the psyches of the men who play it. Yet as Houston kept making points and L.A. kept making mistakes, Jackson was no more adept at making corrections than Madonna.
After the game, Jackson said that the Lakers play on the road “concerns me, but what are we going to do about it now? We can’t stew on it.’’
Others can. There’s the issue of pride. Champions – and hasn’t everyone all but conceded the finals will be between the Lakers and Cavaliers? – play like champions. That doesn’t mean necessarily that they’ll win. It does mean necessarily that they don’t embarrass themselves.
Or pro basketball.
You win by 40 points and 48 hours later lose by 15? Just because Jack Nicholson isn’t sitting courtside? Something is wrong.
“You know what, you’ve just got to grind these things out, man,’’ Kobe Bryant told the media after the game. “The key now is to win by any means necessary.’’
Not to question Kobe, who got his 32 points (if on 11 for 27 shooting), but isn’
t that the idea every time a team takes the floor or the field or the ice, to win?
To show up and show some courage. You’ve heard more times than needed that defense is simply hard work. Maybe the shots don’t fall, but there’s no reason you can’t do everything possible to keep the opponent’s from falling. The Lakers early on did nothing of the sort.
Scola was scoring. Aaron Brooks, 26 points, was scoring. Who would you rather have, Kobe and Pau Gasol or Louis Scola and Aaron Brooks?
Houston, the town, had given up. “Pulse faint for Crutch City Rockets,’’ was the headline in Thursday’s Houston Chronicle, a reference to McGrady and Yao. Houston the team had not given up.
Los Angeles the team? We can debate that.
Phil Jackson said he was “looking forward to Sunday’s game.’’
Coaches always talk like that. What happened in the past, even the very recent past, is never discussed openly (although you can bet there were some aggressive conversations in private.)
In a way, the Rockets are also looking forward to Sunday’s game. They never figured to get that far. Not with the Lakers having beaten them four straight in the regular season. Not with the Lakers holding the home-court advantage. Not with Houston losing star players.
“We play differently on our home court,’’ Kobe Bryant insisted.
Is that an explanation? Or an excuse?
* The game in Houston started at 9 p.m., past the Lakers’ bedtime.
* But 9 p.m. in Houston is only 7 p.m. in Los Angeles, so maybe the Lakers hadn’t awakened from their afternoon naps.
* The Lakers lost concentration because Yao Ming, unable to play, was a spectator, and rarely had been watched by anyone taller than an even 7 feet.
* The Lakers were so amused by the Nike commercial with Kobe and LeBron as Muppets characters, they couldn’t stop laughing until the Rockets were ahead 17-1.
* The Manny Ramirez situation has everyone in the L.A. area so distracted, nobody can think about anything else, Lakers included.
Yes, the Lakers will win Sunday and will take the series and move on to face Denver. But they shouldn’t. Not the way they stood around in Game 6 for the first six minutes.
You can’t call the Lakers gutless. They did rally to get within two points in the third quarter on Thursday night before losing, 95-80.
But you can call them heartless. No team with that much talent, with that much momentum, the Lakers having beaten Houston by 40 points on Tuesday night, should play that badly.
And you can call them clueless.
They were baffled by the Rockets’ Louis Scola, who scored 24 points, many of them on baskets about four inches from the rim. Scola’s from Argentina, so maybe the Lakers were looking for a guy with chaps and a Gaucho hat singing about Eva Peron.
The Lakers and Boston Celtics both have Game Sevens at home. The Celtics, the anti-Lakers, a team that scraps and hustles, earned that seventh game, showing more than enough fight in the loss at Orlando. No Kevin Garnett. Guys in foul trouble, but the Celts kept trying.
The Lakers earned a sneer. The Rockets were not only without Yao but also Tracy McGrady. And they had lost, 118-78, two evenings earlier. They had the right to, as Sinatra sang, roll up into a big ball and die. Instead it was the Lakers who were in a funk.
Phil Jackson, the Lakers coach, has nine NBA titles (six with Michael Jordan), so seemingly he understands not just the technical side of basketball but the psyches of the men who play it. Yet as Houston kept making points and L.A. kept making mistakes, Jackson was no more adept at making corrections than Madonna.
After the game, Jackson said that the Lakers play on the road “concerns me, but what are we going to do about it now? We can’t stew on it.’’
Others can. There’s the issue of pride. Champions – and hasn’t everyone all but conceded the finals will be between the Lakers and Cavaliers? – play like champions. That doesn’t mean necessarily that they’ll win. It does mean necessarily that they don’t embarrass themselves.
Or pro basketball.
You win by 40 points and 48 hours later lose by 15? Just because Jack Nicholson isn’t sitting courtside? Something is wrong.
“You know what, you’ve just got to grind these things out, man,’’ Kobe Bryant told the media after the game. “The key now is to win by any means necessary.’’
Not to question Kobe, who got his 32 points (if on 11 for 27 shooting), but isn’
t that the idea every time a team takes the floor or the field or the ice, to win?
To show up and show some courage. You’ve heard more times than needed that defense is simply hard work. Maybe the shots don’t fall, but there’s no reason you can’t do everything possible to keep the opponent’s from falling. The Lakers early on did nothing of the sort.
Scola was scoring. Aaron Brooks, 26 points, was scoring. Who would you rather have, Kobe and Pau Gasol or Louis Scola and Aaron Brooks?
Houston, the town, had given up. “Pulse faint for Crutch City Rockets,’’ was the headline in Thursday’s Houston Chronicle, a reference to McGrady and Yao. Houston the team had not given up.
Los Angeles the team? We can debate that.
Phil Jackson said he was “looking forward to Sunday’s game.’’
Coaches always talk like that. What happened in the past, even the very recent past, is never discussed openly (although you can bet there were some aggressive conversations in private.)
In a way, the Rockets are also looking forward to Sunday’s game. They never figured to get that far. Not with the Lakers having beaten them four straight in the regular season. Not with the Lakers holding the home-court advantage. Not with Houston losing star players.
“We play differently on our home court,’’ Kobe Bryant insisted.
Is that an explanation? Or an excuse?