Lakers Texas Toast

SAN ANTONIO —  One of the great, humbling defeats of the Phil Jackson-Los Angeles love affair raised two night crawler-sized veins on Rick Fox’s shorn head, from the tips of his eyebrows to the tops of his ears, and he’s a man of perspective.

Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal sat beside each other for the entire fourth quarter at the Alamodome on Wednesday night, and they hardly spoke while the sweat dried on their shoulders, and as the San Antonio Spurs finished off the bottom half of their roster.

If the Lakers are to win their third consecutive championship, it appears it will have to come from this foothold, from a 108-90 defeat that was much worse than that, 24 hours after a similar loss in Dallas.

Afterward, they forced reasoned opinions through suppressed disappointment, through consecutive performances not worthy of all they have done for more than two years. Fifteen regular-season games remain, and they are 11/2 games behind the Sacramento Kings, leaders of the Pacific Division and Western Conference.

“We’re fighters,” Bryant said. “We’re fighters. We’ve been through a lot of challenges. We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs. You have to separate your emotion from the strategy of the game. That’s what we have to do right now.”

The Texas trip concluded 0-2. They lost, 114-98, on Tuesday, because they fell out of step with their offense and their transition defense was laborious. They played with the same frailties a night later, so Tim Duncan scored 25 points in 29 minutes and Malik Rose scored 19 in 21, and the Spurs led by 34 points three minutes into the fourth quarter.

Bryant shook a shooting slump with 20 points on nine-of-16 accuracy, but O’Neal made only two field goals and scored 13 of his 17 points at the free-throw line. The weary Lakers were swamped by the rested Spurs, and so trailed by 13 points near the end of the first quarter, and by 23 near the end of the second.

The Lakers have given up at least 100 points in three consecutive games, and in five of seven.

As the Spurs trotted off the floor beneath the raucous cheers of their fans and the fireworks from their rafters, there arose a question of the gravity of such a singular victory. The Lakers swept the Spurs in four games in last season’s Western Conference finals, beat them two more times since, and approached the last team to win an NBA championship other than themselves with total competitive clarity. Just as they had approached the Mavericks until Tuesday.

The conference playoff seeding is at stake. Playoff home games are at stake. And, while that all seems critical, the Spurs had home-court advantage in last year’s series, and that translated into two home losses for them.

“I’d venture to say it’s not going to matter a bit when it comes April,” Jackson said. “But, you know, the Spurs have to feel better about themselves playing us, that’s for sure.”

A night after he pushed several starters to the end of a rout 250 miles north, Jackson coached a team with heavy legs and vacant stares.

The Spurs hadn’t played since a Saturday night victory over Boston, so were fresh and eager as they extended their winning streak to 10 games.

“I thought we played a good, aggressive game on defense,” Spur Coach Gregg Popovich said. “It allowed us to get in situations to push the basketball. We moved it well.”

The Lakers looked old and stiff, though Jackson started Samaki Walker over Robert Horry at power forward in the hopes of handling Duncan. Still, they had 20 turnovers, seven by Bryant, and Laker starters, in 128 combined minutes, had one assist.

“They just beat us to the ball,” Jackson said. “We were not as sharp as they were. Fatigue was a factor, yes, but they were quicker to make plays than we were.”

The Spurs looked like 1999, the year they swept the developing Lakers in the playoffs and won their NBA title. After two quarters, they had 16 assists on 23 field goals, and had 12 fastbreak points. With about two minutes left in the third quarter, TNT went running off to Denver, to Michael Jordan and the Washington Wizards, who might give it an audience.

“This was great for us,” said Duncan, who had 19 points by halftime. “Especially with the roll we are on, this really caps it off. We played as well as we have for the entire streak here tonight.”

We know this: If in the playoffs the Lakers have to play in San Antonio the night after they play in Dallas, they might not three-peat. Certainly, it will take them a while to get the stink of these 26 hours off them, in a town where the local paper screamed, “JUDGMENT DAY.” But, they inhaled, and they clenched their jaws, and they raised veins on their heads, and they spoke with the perspective of springs when they won before.

For a moment, that’s what they had.

“I’m not that concerned at all,” O’Neal said. “For us, it’s all about us. [Tuesday] night we let one slip away and tonight we came in kind of flat.”

“There’s still plenty of time. Like I said, it’s all about us.”

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spurious Efforts

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