|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Lakers just aren't ready
Posted: Monday May 22, 2000 12:22 PM
Call it a hunch, but I think the Portland Trail Blazers are going to upset the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals. Yes, I know the Lakers finished the regular season 67-15 -- the sixth-best regular season record of all-time -- and a whopping eight games ahead of Portland. I also realize L.A. has two of the NBA's best players in Shaq and Kobe Bryant -- not to mention the Zen Master, home court advantage, Jack Nicholson, the Laker Girls, and that little green beanie baby on A.C. Green' s head. Make no mistake, the Lakers are a great team. They will probably win several titles in coming years. I'm just not convinced they're ready yet. NBA champions are usually created gradually, step by step, forged by years of frustration and heartbreaking defeats. The old Celtics had to suffer an anguishing upset loss to the 76ers. The Pistons had to experience the late-game heroics of Larry Bird and Company. The Bulls had to absorb the nefarious blows of the Bad Boys. The present Lakers? They've had no adversity -- unless you want to count Fred Hickman' s MVP vote. The L.A. players haven't been together long enough to fully trust each other. If Shaq misses a key free throw late in Game 1, will Kobe pass him the ball at the end of Game 2? If Bryant tries to do too much, will Glen Rice lose focus on the defensive end? At the start of the season, Phil Jackson publicly said he didn't really expect his team to win the title in his first year as coach. At the All-Star break, Lakers assistant Tex Winter told me that the team had a long way to go. He specifically mentioned a lack of defense against the screen-and-roll, something L.A. figures figure to see a lot of versus Portland. Granted, the Lakers eventually caught on and turned the NBA into their own playpen. But in the playoffs they have regressed. Rice has been inconsistent, the bench has been spotty, and on the road they have shown an alarming tendency to turn into the Clippers. The Blazers, by comparison, look to have recovered nicely from their late-season post-Lakers hangover. Scottie Pippen has raised his game. Brian Grant has regained his form. Rasheed Wallace has kept his cool. In Pippen, Steve Smith and Detlef Schrempf, Portland has three savvy vets who know what to do at crunch time. Meanwhile, the Lakers' younger core of O'Neal, Bryant and Rice is liable to tense up. Of course, I could be dead wrong. Shaq might hit his free throws, Bryant might take over, and L.A. might play the kind of stifling team defense it did in holding the Suns to 65 points in Game 5 of the semifinals as opposed to the sieve-like unit that gave up 70 in the first half of Game 4. If so, forgive me. After watching the Knicks-Heat series, my senses may have become dulled. Marty Burns covers pro basketball for CNNSI.com. Look for his columns on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Click here to send Marty a comment.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
