Again, Lakers Have Answers

SACRAMENTO —  Fear this.

Springtime for Phil Jackson in Mayberry. The townspeople picking up their pitchforks and cowbells and heading to Arco Arena to see their Kings play the hated Lakers in Games 1, 2, 5 and (shudder) 7 of the West finals.

At this point, although he steadfastly denies it--what, him worry?--we suspect Jackson awakens, screaming, “No! Not there! Anywhere but there!”

Happily for Phil’s eardrums, if not his peace of mind, his twice-defending champions, who had been chilling for months, actually took Sunday’s game seriously and finally played like it, escaping with a 97-96 victory that was more significant than its razor-thin edge.

The Lakers lead the season series, 2-1, with the last game in Staples Center. Just as important, they learned something:

They’re still the Lakers.

“Did you guys need this one after last week?” someone asked Kobe Bryant, coolest of the cool, afterward.

“A little bit,” said Bryant, grinning his little grin. “Show we still got it.”

Yes, despite everything they say, they worry.

It is the Lakers’ oft-stated position they’re the best, no one can beat them but them, etc. Jackson was playing along, projecting serene confidence, but may have become a tad concerned last week in Texas, when they got their backsides shot up by assorted Mavericks and Spurs.

“Shaq [O’Neal] totally feels when playoff times comes.... and he has more time to get ready.... it’s going to be much more difficult for teams to beat us,” said Jackson before Sunday’s game.

“And it’s hard to convince these guys otherwise because they’ve been through it and they have an understanding that’s deep within them of what they can do. However, as a coach, I can’t let them rest on that at all.”

This was clearly no time to be resting on anything for anyone. Home-court advantage hung in the balance. With it, the Kings would even scare guys as cool as the Lakers; without it, the Kings would still just be the Kings.

Not even the Kings argue that point. As Chris Webber noted a week ago, without home-court, they had “no shot.”

Then the Kings also had to prove they could beat the Lakers on their home court, another problem.

Over the last two seasons, counting playoff, the Kings, the mightiest homers in the Western World, were 65-10 against everyone else here, 1-4 against the Lakers.

Oops: Make that 1-5.

The Kings were ready, winning three in a row while the Lakers were getting kicked around the Lone Star State.

On Thursday while the Kings finished off the Nuggets, their fans started chanting, “Beat L.A.!”

The Kings are, in fact, tougher, even deeper, but that still doesn’t mean they’re better than the Lakers, and they would have to play better than they played Sunday to reconfigure any balance of power.

Webber started the game in stirring fashion, stealing O’Neal’s opening tip, taking it in for a pretty reverse layup, going on to score 14 points with five rebounds in the first quarter, as the Kings went up by as many as eight points.

Then he shot four for 18 the rest of the way.

With Peja Stojakovic out, it was remarkable the Kings were able to stay as close as they did. With 1:19 left, they were tied and O’Neal was on the bench with six fouls.

Unfortunately for the home team, the Lakers had the ball. The Kings didn’t get it back until Bryant had driven left from the top of the key, hurtled down the lane, turned his body at the hoop to avoid the oncoming traffic and laid the ball in backward.

Then Bryant knocked in a 17-footer the next time down for a 97-94 lead, which would be enough, underlining another reality that seemed to dim last week when players like Adrian Griffin and Bruce Bowen were given credit for shutting an unusually-passive Kobe down: The Lakers are still a two-superstar team.

“How can the game be bigger for them?” Webber said afterward. “They got two championships. Nothing’s bigger than a championship game so this was nothing to them....

“I just thought they were gonna come in here and play their game. When you’ve got two championships, you cannot panic, not worry, you know? They’ve been through it before so....

“I don’t fall into all that, ‘The Lakers are playing bad and Shaq is this and that.’ I think they’re a hell of a team and we’ve still got to beat them in a series to take that ring from them....

“They’re a great team. What more can I say? They’re a great team.

“It’s funny. If we had won this game, a lot of different questions would have been asked.”

They had their chance. Getting the ball with 5.2 seconds left, they ran a play that went into Webber on the baseline, who went up from 10 feet and missed again.

So today everyone is asking the same old questions: Who is out there that can stand up to the Lakers when they’re serious?

And, of course, from now on, the Lakers will be serious because they know nothing is automatic, nothing is for sure, won’t you guys?

Guys?