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Lakers' Team Report L.A. looking for a way to beat the Game 2 blues
Posted: Friday June 09, 2000 12:57 AM
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com LOS ANGELES -- Game 2s have not been all that kind to the Los Angeles Lakers this postseason. Game 2 of the NBA Finals is Friday night. You do the math. Every player on the Lakers, up 1-0 on the Indiana Pacers in this first-to-four Finals, knows the importance of Friday's game at the Staples Center. They all know that in their last Game 2, against the Portland Trail Blazers, they were rocked 106-77. On their home court. They know that in round two, it took a Kobe Bryant jumper with 2.6 seconds left to subdue the Phoenix Suns. At the Staples Center. They know that with a loss to the Pacers on Friday, their home-court advantage would go flying out the window, like so many Reggie Miller jumpers. They know they don't want to go through that again. "We know that they're going to be pumped up. We know they're going to be playing extra hard," said Lakers center and one-man Indiana wrecking crew Shaquille O'Neal. "We just have to step it up. We can't really have that many lapses." Much of the talk surrounding the Lakers' off-day practice Thursday centered on the importance of Game 2 and the problems the Lakers have had with it. The key word floating around was "adjustments." The Lakers are going to have to make sure they know what to do when the Pacers adjust by going to a strong double-team against O'Neal, as they're liable to do. They must adjust and find a way to get someone other than O'Neal involved in the offense, if it comes down to that. "They have to throw more men at [O'Neal]," coach Phil Jackson said, "so that's the adjustment." If the Pacers throw an effective defense at O'Neal, who had 43 points and 19 rebounds in L.A.'s 104-87 Game 1 win, it will be primarily up to Kobe Bryant or Glen Rice to take over. "That's what we've been doing all playoffs," Bryant said. "Kind of just picking your poison." Whatever the Pacers do, and however the Lakers react to it, L.A. expects a much more difficult time in Game 2. It's been their history. "It could be because we've had such great Game 1s and our level of intensity has dropped and our opponent's level of energy has picked up," said guard Rick Fox. "Knowing that's a problem, let's stay aware of that and try to fix that." If they don't, this series could go a lot longer than the Lakers want.
Strategy of the DayJackson is becoming a coaching maverick of sorts with his decisions not to call timeouts in the middle of an opponent's run. He did it Wednesday night, declining to signal for a break in the middle of an Indiana run that cut a 15-point lead to two. He even did it -- maybe "didn't do it" is more accurate -- in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. The Lakers pulled out both of those games. But some wondered whether Jackson should have burned a timeout. His players don't wonder. "I kind of like it," forward Robert Horry said. "He just wanted us to play through it; he wanted us to fight back ourselves," O'Neal said. "We did that. As long as we could get out focus back at the right time, we'll be fine." Jackson said he wanted Indiana to use all its energy on its comeback, figuring the Pacers wouldn't have any gas left in the fourth quarter. As it turned out, the strategy worked. And Jackson figures to use it again. "I thought we absorbed it pretty well," Jackson said. "It took kind of a lot out of them to get back into the game at that level."
Quote of the DayForward Glen Rice, normally a dead-eye outside shooter, on the plight of Indiana's Reggie Miller, who went 1-for-16 from the field in the Game 1 Pacers' loss: "Feel for him? No, I don't feel for Reggie at all. I didn't have a good shooting night myself, so I have my own concerns." Rice was 1-for-8.
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