Los Angeles Lakers
1. Championship Experience
These days, it’s all about the basketball for Phil Jackson. Well, he’s still dating the owner’s daughter, which has led to some memorable appearances on Jeanie Vision, but that’s also about the basketball, sort of.
Jackson gets his third crack at Title X, starting this week, and if he seems a little more urgent, his focus a little more narrowed, that’s because of the basketball, too. Seven years after his last championship, seven years after nearly everyone west of Causeway Street anointed him Greatest Coach Ever, or, at least, (Arguably) Greatest Coach Ever, Jackson has found himself with something to prove.
Specifically, can he still win this thing?
“I think even he misses those days when we carried off that trophy as NBA champions,” Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher(notes) said.
The Lakers’ loss to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals led to Jackson’s departure for a year, and their subsequent failings led to his return. But last season’s Finals loss to the Boston Celtics also led to some personal angst, even if Jackson was loathe to show it.
“We feel like we failed our team as a coaching staff in both situations,” Jackson said last week.
2. Phil Jackson
Phil takes the mic, first.
On what Orlando's two regular season victories over Los Angeles means to the Lakers ...
On whether or not his team is preparing for the possible presence of Jameer Nelson ..."We have a great deal of respect for them as far as a team. They played very well down the stretch to win these two games they played against us. Obviously [there are] mitigating circumstances, we had different people in the lineup, they had different people in the lineup, it was four months ago; but it certainly gives us a great deal of respect for them."
Was losing to Boston last year a motivating factor this time around?"We haven't gotten to that level of personnel, the guard personnel, other than [Dwight] Howard being a force inside. We're still identifying it as positions, more than we are as individuals, and Jameer brings another level of game to their team, but, you know, we respect [Anthony] Johnson. Also, [Rafer] Alston, as players.
"Someone's gotta do that job for them, and, you know, Jameer's going to come in and do it. If he does he'll just bring in another specific thing that's an execution skill."
3. Kobe Bryant"I think that at any level that once you get a taste of what it's like to be here, it's a motivating factor. Just to be standing, just to be left with that feeling of ‘we're the only ones here, and everybody else is home on vacation.'
"When you get to this level and don't win, you go home and you think about it a long time. It's something that is certainly a motivating thing for us. It's certainly pushed us."
Kobe Bryant(notes) has retreated into one of his dark provinces, a sullen and solitary state radiating an unmistakable aura: Don’t bleep with me now. As Bryant creeps closer to these NBA Finals, he’s long with his glares and short with his answers. Around him, his people will tell you that they’ve seldom seen him work his way into such a startling ferocity.
For fifteen minutes, he had been hellbent on getting out of the Staples Center interview room with pursed lips and muttered clichés. He wanted to give nothing, and he was well on his way when it was asked of him about needing a championship without Shaquille O’Neal(notes), about validating his legacy. There would be no clean getaway on Wednesday for Kobe Bryant.
He was out of clichés, out of patience and damn near out of his mind. “It means … nothing,” he said, and now it was coming on the eve of Game 1, the window into Bryant’s tortured soul that reminds everyone that it means everything.
“People think Shaq would have won a championship without me on that team?” Bryant sniffed.
“They’re crazy.”
4. Pau Gasol, D. Fisher and the LA CrewSo, this is what all those nights in January and February were like …
Kobe Bryant(notes) leaning back in his chair on the bench, towel slung over his left shoulder, grin stretching across his face. Jordan Farmar(notes) throwing in a 3-pointer at the end of the quarter – actually, Jordan Farmar throwing in any shot, at any time, will do.
The crowd chanting for free tacos. Better yet: The crowd chanting for a backup center. We want Mben-ga!
Mbenga in tow, the Los Angeles Lakers regained their air of dominance on Tuesday, announcing their return to the playoffs – or was it their arrival altogether? – with a 118-78 victory over the Houston Rockets. This was their best performance of the postseason, two days after their worst, and that meant … what exactly?
“It doesn’t do anything but bring home the seventh game, guarantee us home-court advantage,” said Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
Actually, the Lakers prefer that the next game they play at Staples Center be the opener of the Western Conference finals rather than a seventh game against the Rockets. They now lead the Rockets 3-2 in the teams’ conference semifinal series, with Game 6 scheduled for Thursday in Houston. Coming off a 40-point victory, their largest in the playoffs in more than 23 years, they should be heavy favorites.
Then again, the way this postseason has gone for the Lakers, most specifically this series, anything is possible.
“Don’t get caught up in how it’s packaged,” guard Derek Fisher(notes) said. “I just want the trophy.”
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
