Switch in Time

On the bright side, this is doing wonders for the Lakers’ humility.

That was the one thing they were missing as they pursued their third NBA title in a row their way, mailing in the season while continuing to proclaim their greatness.

Of course, that was how they did it last spring so who was going to tell them it wouldn’t always work that way from now on?

That would be the Sacramento Kings.

A year ago, the Lakers were deemed “unbeatable,” but if there’s one thing we’ve learned lately, that time is over. If you want to know how they got into this predicament, it wasn’t referees, flops or poison burgers. They got themselves into it.

Nor was it hard to predict, or, as it proceeded to unfold, difficult to see.

It was that way from the get-go. In a preseason meeting, Coach Phil Jackson asked his players to predict their win total. One by one, they went to the board and wrote their numbers, running as high as 73, which would have been a record, with a bunch in the 70s. The lowest, says one of them, was 63.

Instead, they started 16-1, hit a lull, otherwise known as the rest of the season, and finished 58-24, second in the Western Conference. That’s why they had to play Game 5 of the conference finals in Arco Arena and have to go back for Game 7, in the event they’re still among us.

Of course, things could be worse. Well, a little.

“If you talk about surviving an earthquake, which definitely they brought in Games 3 and 4, we feel stable now,” forward Rick Fox said Wednesday. “We were really pretty much blitzed ... and shaken and gathered ourselves....

“I thought we did a lot of those things that we needed to do in Game 5 to give ourselves a chance to win, but the same thing that makes you laugh makes you cry. Rob [Horry] hits a shot, [Mike] Bibby hits a shot.”

And he who laughs last has a better summer than he who goes on vacation crying.

By the regular season’s end, “unbeatable” had been replaced by “vulnerable” as the operative adjective, even if the Lakers, and everyone else, expected them to hit their magic switch.

And besides, someone still had to be found who was big enough to take them out.

The San Antonio Spurs couldn’t do it, but it wasn’t like last season’s romp. Under pressure, rifts opened. The whole deal between Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal looked as if it might melt down, after Jackson zinged O’Neal in the media after Game 2 and they argued during Game 3.

Anything might have happened if they had lost that one, but Kobe Bryant bailed them out with his 11-point fourth quarter.

Of course, they knew they were better than the Kings, too, having won six of their last seven in Arco.

In March, with the Lakers moldering as far south as No. 4 in the West, Jackson was asked how he planned to overhaul the Kings while giving O’Neal his much-discussed time off. Jackson suggested, as usual, it wasn’t that big a deal.

“They [Kings] still haven’t proven themselves as a real quality road team yet,” he said. “We know they’re really solid on their home court. They have a bandbox and they play in front of their fans very well. They just got over .500 as a road team in this last month and I think the jury’s still out on them.”

The Kings then finished 13-5 on the road and ran away with the West.

Not that anyone one in L.A. lost any sleep over it. The Lakers finished No. 2 last season, too, and then rocked the Spurs twice in the Alamodome.

Sure enough, the Lakers won Game 1 in Arco. Then Bryant ate that burger, Shaq was called for a couple of charges in Game 2 and they lost.

Of course, they were coming home so what was the problem?

Oh, that was the problem.

If this doesn’t end well for them, the Lakers will wince when they remember Game 3. O’Neal, who’d become serene as a buddha in first quarters at Staples Center, paced himself through another one, taking four shots, missing three, scoring two points, leaving late in the period with the Kings up by 14.

When he got back in early in the second quarter, the Kings were up by 21, making it a little late for the Lakers to start playing.

In the really bad news for the Lakers, Shaq came ready in Game 4, scoring 10 points in the first quarter. The Kings didn’t seem to care, running up a 24-point lead before halftime, even if it got away.

The imp wasn’t going back in the bottle. The Kings were tougher, their confidence was soaring and then there was Bibby, considered little more than competent before Peja Stojakovic was hurt, opportunity dawned and stardom arrived.

This was even a surprise to the Kings. After acquiring Bibby, General Manager Geoff Petrie put off giving him a big-money extension. As a consequence, Bibby, an upcoming restricted free agent, will soon be working for an even bigger-money extension.

Not that the Kings will object to paying it, if the sight of co-owner Gavin Maloof dancing on the press table after Game 5 offers any clue to their state of mind.

“That’s a very good team,” said Fox. “I’ll comment on how impressed I am if they win the series....

“Last year there really wasn’t a team that competed to our level. This year has been a little different in the sense that we’re meeting a team that plays a different style, is very good at what they do but has made plays. They haven’t wilted in stretches when we’ve made runs at them. They’ve been there to make the kind of plays teams that have been here before do....

“A lot of it has to do with the addition of Bibby, who’s played big basketball at the college level and is now rising to the occasion of playing big and making big shots.”

Rising to meet the threat, Shaq has started to score in double figures in the first quarter. The Lakers aren’t done yet, even if their cakewalking days are over, at least for the time being.

Some years, it goes like this. Most years, as a matter of fact. Last season was the aberration, the Lakers just learned.

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Gone Fishing

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