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Advantage Lakers Ten-day layoff will have no ill effect on defending champs
Updated: Friday June 01, 2001 3:13 AM
CNN/Sports Illustrated's Kevin Loughery joined the Sports Tonight show to discuss the NBA playoffs.
Fred Hickman: Will the Lakers' 10-day layoff hurt them? Kevin Loughery: You're going to hear a lot about "We're stale, we haven't had great practices," but it's a tremendous plus for the Lakers to have the time off. You've played 93 games so far this season. You get the rest, your opponents may go seven games, they are going to have to travel across the country and you are at home. Unbelievable advantage for the Lakers. Hickman: If you are George Karl, how do you keep the fact that the Bucks have lost their composure from costing them the series? Loughery: You have to be very careful, Fred. They have a chance to win this series. They can win at home and then go back to Philadelphia and win Game 7. But they have been outshot, 134-77, from the line. But the Bucks are a jump-shooting team. The 76ers take it to the basket. The key in the series has been offensive rebounding. The 76ers have been all over the offensive glass and that's when you create fouls. Right now, the Sixers deserve to go to the line more than the Bucks. Karl has to tell his players to forget about the officials. We have a chance to win this series if we just play basketball.
Hickman: Dikembe Mutombo has been playing well. Loughery: He has been awesome. He's been a major player in the entire series. To me, he's the MVP of the series. He's protected the middle when Karl said he wouldn't be a factor. But defensively, he allows his teammates to pressure the shooters while he takes care of all the layups. And he has been a monster on the offensive glass, 6.5 offensive rebounds a game. Plus he's tipping balls. Milwaukee has to run. They can't get a clean defensive rebound to run. It's all because of Mutombo. Hickman: Is this the greatest Lakers playoff team ever? Loughery: It's obviously the best playoff team if they sweep. But I like the Magic [Johnson], Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], [James] Worthy, [Byron] Scott and [Michael] Cooper team. That was a tremendous team. Magic is as good as Kobe [Bryant] and then you have Shaq [O'Neal] and Kareem. But I think the other three players from the '80s Lakers are better than the other three from this year's team. Two great teams. Hickman: Is this the best coaching job Phil Jackson has done? Loughery: I think it is Phil's best job, Fred, because if you look at about two months ago this was a totally dysfunctional team. People are now talking about how they are one of the greatest teams of all time. Many people didn't think they would get past the first round of the playoffs against Portland. Phil has turned them around. When your team is going down and they are struggling and they have two great stars pulling against one another, Phil got them back together. And he has a very veteran group of assistant coaches. Hickman: I was very impressed with Eric Snow, playing with a pin in his foot. Loughery: It was a tremendous job he did the other night. But one thing about Eric Snow -- he is probably, outside of [Allen] Iverson -- the greatest competitor on this team. He has the respect of all his teammates. And for Larry Brown, it's the perfect player he could have gotten to move Iverson to the two-guard and use Snow as the point guard. Iverson has tremendous respect for Snow. Iverson really wants to be the point guard, but he moved over because he has tremendous respect for Snow. Kevin Loughery is a former NBA player and head coach. He appears each Sunday on CNN's "This Week in the NBA."
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