Thoughts from the L.A. area.....
Spurs have turned it around
By JEFF MILLER
The Orange County Register
SAN ANTONIO - Sometimes you have to flip the binoculars around and squint into the tiny images to see the big picture.
This morning - with this Lakers-Spurs muscle waltz only two games old and the Lakers already looking gray-going-on-ghostly - is one of those times.
Because the truth is, no matter how often you read it or hear it or repeat it yourself, this series might not be about the Lakers after all. It might be about the Spurs, period. If they play well, they advance to the Western Conference finals. No matter what the Lakers do. Simple as that? Just might be so, yes.
With the point of view reversed Wednesday, that's how it looked here, in the aftermath of a 10-point San Antonio victory that was very little like the Spurs' first 10-point victory Sunday.
The Lakers still lost despite Tim Duncan shooting just 13 times and grabbing seven rebounds. They still lost despite Duncan going scoreless in a fourth quarter that decided the game.
They still lost despite the Spurs scoring 12 points in a third period during which San Antonio played "unwisely and without much juice," winning coach Gregg Popovich explained.
Yet, Lakers coach Phil Jackson announced he was "confident" in moving to Staples Center for Games 3 and 4. This confidence, however, could be found only by looking deep inside and X's and O's, past those bigger and bolder numbers on the scoreboard, by dissecting the carnage bit by painful bit.
Coaches, particularly those trying to sell their players on things like belief and trust, will dig as far down as necessary.
"There's a space out there we have to work with," Jackson explained. And this: "We found an angle to work with." And this: "We got the concept tonight." And, finally, even this: "You could see the difference (from Game 1)."
Troubling, though, was the way the Spurs pummeled the Lakers immediately after the opening tip. Tony Parker again was making Gary Payton look as mobile as Payton's future Hall of Fame plaque. Shaquille O'Neal was being called for things like three seconds and traveling, giving the game a that-70s feel. The Spurs were dumping successful jumpers on the Lakers like spades full of dirt.
En route to being buried in the first quarter, Jackson even was moved to turn to Rick Fox, whose face recently had appeared in the playoffs only in those Radio Shack commercials.
The deficit reached 16 points. Then 17. Then 19. Speaking to the Lakers' level of desperation in the second quarter, the team turned Slava Medvedenko and his ornery Achilles' tendon into a go-to guy. On their best nights, the Lakers treat Medvedenko like a flee-from guy. But at that point, Jackson had halved the Big Four into the Original Two and added Three Littles.
Encouraging was the way the Lakers responded after halftime, first behind Payton and his precious post-ups, later behind some typical Kobe Bryant craziness and all along behind O'Neal, who hammered his right hand on the rim so many times he likely iced it like a boxer on the flight home.
Along the way, the Lakers even managed to solve the Spurs' fronting of their center, a strategy that was touted for Shaq-proofing the fourth quarter of Game 1. By employing a scheme as old as James Naismith, Popovich was all but nominated for a Noble Peace Prize the past three days.
Still, while the Lakers made it back, they never could make it all the way back. There were communication issues - "Typical of the year," Karl Malone said afterward. There was Malone picking up a dumb technical foul - "A hole in the ship," Jackson called it. There was a coughing offense - "Our execution failed us," Jackson said.
In the fourth quarter, a time that used to be smothered by Laker fingerprints and brilliance, it was the Spurs making the shots, the plays, the stops.
It was the Spurs, not the Lakers, making the difference.
"It looked to me like we ran out of gas again trying to get back in the game," Jackson said. "We have to come out better (in Game 3)."
Here's how daunting this challenge is to Jackson and his team. At a timeout with 2:11 remaining, the Lakers had outrebounded the Spurs by 11, had two more assists overall and were shooting 54.3 percent, easily better than the Spurs. And they were still down by eight.
"We just gotta go out and do it now," O'Neal said. "Enough talking."
Of course, what follows now is three more days of nothing but talking. And idle time usually isn't good to the Lakers, who woke up Wednesday to find O'Neal's stepfather in the local newspaper ripping Bryant for being selfish.
A player's parent complaining? And this is supposed to matter? (Yeah, with the Lakers everything matters, especially the relentless public whining.) But even a parent's complaining in Little League has no genuine meaning.
Since this is the Lakers and it's all about the Lakers, such developments are deemed newsworthy.
That's the notable thing, though, today. This might not be about the Lakers. Not anymore. Not at all.
