Lakers Are Looking for the Answers

They still lead the series, 3-1, but suddenly the Lakers’ vulnerabilities seem to outnumber their strengths by the same ratio.

There were three Phoenix Sun players racing to the basket for every one active Laker defender in Sunday’s 117-98 Game 4 Laker debacle, three wobbly Laker players--at least--for every consistent one, and three hurried shots from Laker stalwarts for every smooth swish.

Three worried motivational moves by Coach Phil Jackson for every one relaxed moment.

Three reasons to start imagining the bigger, faster, deeper Portland Trail Blazers giving the slower, creakier Lakers all they can handle, or very possibly more, in a potential Western Conference final series, for every one notion that the Lakers are still postseason favorites.

Monday, with Game 5 of this best-of-seven series set for tonight at Staples Center, there were not three but 11 Laker players who avoided answering questions about the situation, and only one who would, veteran guard Ron Harper.

In the political polling business, this would be called an alarming trend.

In the playoff basketball business, even with a berth in the next round almost assured, this was not the way to go about duplicating the success Jackson and Harper had when they won three consecutive titles with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls (after Jordan and Jackson had won three before Harper got there).

“Oh, the Bulls teams? We would’ve beat the Suns by about 200 points,” Harper said.

“The Bulls had a mean thing where, if we had a team that we knew did not have a chance, we would eat them up. We haven’t developed that, no way--we haven’t got there yet.

“We’re still trying to see who’s who. No killer instinct at all.”

Harper also repeated the prediction he made before the deciding Game 5 in the first round against Sacramento, though with slightly less zest.

“We’re going to win tomorrow’s game,” Harper said. “No doubt in my mind.”

But, sounding even more bewildered than he had after two losses to Sacramento shockingly put the Lakers on the brink of first-round elimination, Harper was more concerned about his talented teammates, about the emotional state of a team that could turn in such a clinker at such an important time.

If a team has a brilliant power forward, such as Sacramento’s Chris Webber . . . Or a bunch of slasher-shooters, such as Phoenix’s Penny Hardaway, Cliff Robinson and Jason Kidd . . . Or is as deep as Portland . . .

Or is it that just about any team can take the Lakers to the mat these days?

“I am seeing that if we want to be a championship basketball team . . . we are not even near there,” Harper said.

Jackson was startled enough by the Game 4 performance to speak only briefly to his players at halftime, not at all afterward, and to temper his remarks Monday.

He was not pleased by the effort or the display, but Jackson carefully pointed to several little moments during the game when the Lakers could have stayed within reach, but let fouls or one bad bounce deflate them.

This is not, Jackson said, necessarily a problem of the obvious--the usually dependable Laker defense was strafed for a season-high 71 first-half points in Game 4, starting forwards Glen Rice and A.C. Green are struggling on offense and defense, Shaquille O’Neal was taken out of the game by fouls and Phoenix aggressiveness, and the Lakers still aren’t getting every-game success from their bench.

This is more, he said, about not letting bad plays turn into bad runs that turn into blowout losses and finger-pointing exercises.

“I think you can roll a lot of things up into one,” Jackson said. “You could throw all kinds of instances of these things [instead of] taking responsibility for your own actions, which is what we have to do. Just take responsibility.

“This is a ballclub that has a lot of trouble just saying, ‘My fault, mea culpa.’ . . . Take control. Do it yourself. Be the boss of your own situation and everything will work out.”

Said Harper, when asked to assess the mood of his teammates: “Mad. Upset. Sad. Sorry we have to be here today [instead of enjoying the day off that clinching the series Sunday would have provided]. Sorry we had to see this [game] film again, half of it.

“Not doing too good, I would say.”

When the issue of Rice’s performance against Phoenix was brought up, Jackson stressed patience and positives. Rice made only four of 14 shots in Game 4 and is shooting only 29.5% in the series, averaging 11.3 points.

“Just want to let him work it out,” Jackson said. “He’s got to keep coming back with the right attitude, and he is. . . .

“Little things happened: He got hammered on a three-point shot from the corner and there was no call. . . .

“We just have to keep encouraging him to do the things that will help us in our offense.”

Jackson stressed that postseason basketball has its ebbs and flows, and that, even in the early years of the Bulls’ domination, there were unsteady days.

“Like I told you in the other series, I’m not that disappointed--we needed to play a game between now and Saturday,” said Jackson, alluding to the fact the conference finals will start no sooner than Saturday.

“It’s important for us to learn lessons as a basketball team. We’re not at that caliber yet where we can take anything for granted; each lesson that’s handed us, we have to accept willingly.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE SERIES

LAKERS vs. PHOENIX

Lakers lead Western Conference series, 3-1

GAME 1

Lakers 105, Suns 77

GAME 2

Lakers 97, Suns 96

GAME 3

Lakers 105, Suns 99

GAME 4

Suns 117, Lakers 98

GAME 5

Tonight, 7:30 p.m.

at Staples, Fox Sp. Net

GAME 6*

Thursday, TBA

at Phoenix, Ch. 9, TNT

GAME 7*

Saturday, TBA

at Staples, Ch. 4

*if necessary