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Lakers' Locker Room Embarrassed Lakers can't live down their reputation
Posted: Saturday June 17, 2000 02:28 AM
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com INDIANAPOLIS -- "Embarrassed" would be a good word. "Ridiculed" might be another. Just plain whooped, as in a 33-point butt-whooping, is probably pretty accurate, too. The Los Angeles Lakers, stunned by the veteran Indiana Pacers 120-87 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Friday night, now have to spend most of the next three days living with their one well-deserved rap that just will not go away. The Lakers can't kick a team when it's down. When the Lakers have a chance to do something easy, they do it hard instead. When they have an opportunity to win, they play around. And sometimes, like Friday night in Indy, they lose. Big. "This is for the championship of the world. It's ridiculous," L.A. forward A.C. Green said after Friday's loss. "We laid an egg," guard Ron Harper said. "We've laid the egg before. This is our third egg in the playoffs." The Lakers are still up in the NBA Finals, three games to two, and the next two games, if both are needed, are back in L.A.'s Staples Center. If you're a betting person, you still have to favor the Lakers. But their latest effort -- of lack of it, if you listen to some -- did nothing to stamp them as certain championship caliber. In fact, it probably did just the opposite. Even if they win the title, which would be their first since 1988, folks will remember the fact that they were blown out in their first try in clinching it. "We're upset with ourselves," said L.A. coach Phil Jackson. "I don't like to think of a team that has championship quality in it losing by 33 points. We have to prove something to ourselves when we go back home ..." The Lakers allowed the Pacers to shoot 75 percent in the first quarter -- 61 percent overall in the first half -- and trailed by 19 at half. They never got it any closer than 13 in the second half and, after 30 seconds of the fourth quarter, never got closer than 20 points in the fourth. Lack of a killer instinct? The Lakers, who faced elimination in two of the three earlier rounds in the playoffs, too, may not even know what that is. "It's a sense of urgency you have to have," Green said, "and we haven't developed it as a team yet." Said point guard Derek Fisher: "I think there's a natural human tendency to relax when you don't have to win." Perhaps the most alarming trend for the Lakers is that they have allowed the Pacers to score at least 100 points in four straight games. The two teams have split those two games. L.A. was outscored by an average of just over seven points in the first quarter of Games 3, 4 and 5 at Indy's Conseco Fieldhouse. Those slow starts doomed them in two of the games, and it took an overtime thriller in Game 4 for the Lakers to get their one win in Indy. Still, the one win is probably all they needed. And even as embarrassed as they all were Friday, that's what the Lakers will keep in their minds this weekend. Two games to win one. That's all they need. At home. "We came here to get a ballgame," Jackson said. "We did it. You know, we're still in the driver's seat ... We're not in a situation where we have to get in a panic mode." No. Not yet.
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