Lakers can’t handle Parker’s play

Smushed again.

The Lakers had a Suns-splashed chance to steal a game Sunday, steal momentum, save a season, and what happened?

Smushed again.

The Lakers stormed into the 2007 playoffs Sunday like April was January, reclaiming their heads, their legs, their heart.

Forty-eight minutes later, they staggered away unable to find their guards.

It is unfair, certainly, to blame their 95-87 opening-game playoff loss to the Phoenix Suns on a guy who didn’t play long enough to dampen his headband.

Yet it is impossible to ignore that the collapse of Smush Parker’s season again led to the pile of smoking rubble around him.

The Lakers blew a dozen-point lead because they didn’t have a ballhandling guard.

Kobe Bryant was forced to exhaust himself in the first half because they didn’t have a ballhandling guard.

Lamar Odom’s double-double was wasted because they didn’t have a ballhandling guard.

That guard should have been Parker, but apparently now will never be Parker, and where does that leave the Lakers?

With a postseason beginning that felt like an ending.

“It was a good playoff experience, and nobody can take that experience away from me,” Parker said afterward.

Who would want to?

Exiled to the bench after 162 consecutive starts because of a lack of energy and attention, Parker was nonetheless on the court when the Lakers had a six-point lead late in the third quarter.

Leandro Barbosa strolled past midcourt virtually unguarded by Parker and threw in a long three-point shot at the buzzer to close the gap to three.

“I thought they would be closer to me,” Barbosa said. “I was surprised.”

On the Lakers’ first possession of the fourth quarter, Parker threw the ball away.

Moments later, Barbosa beat Parker on a half-court drive for a three-point play, tying the game.

On the Suns’ next possession, Barbosa beat Parker for another layup, giving the Suns a lead they never lost.

“Barbosa did a great job for them with penetrating,” Bryant said. “We couldn’t keep him in front of us.”

Parker was immediately sent to the bench and didn’t play again, his playing time totaling all of 10 minutes, his scoring totaling zero, his stock further plummeting.

“In the second half, their guard play outmatched ours,” Coach Phil Jackson said.

That, not Bryant’s one-for-10 fourth quarter, cost them the win.

That, not Kwame Brown’s irrelevance and Andrew Bynum’s youth, is the Lakers’ biggest long-term worry.

Ah, but for the return of Derek Fisher, even if only for 0.4 of a second.

“Tempo, tempo, tempo,” said Odom when asked about the Suns, adding, “They’re so good because they play the same way every time. And we have to find out how to do that.”

It’s hard for the Lakers to establish a tempo when their starting ballhandling guard Sunday was a guy who spent a few minutes in the development league last month, a guy making only the third start of his career.

Jordan Farmar looked good in spots Sunday, but he’s still learning, and understandably wore down against the likes of Steve Nash and Barbosa.

It is then hard for the Lakers to maintain that tempo when their backup guard is a guy who should be starting but who has been in a funk since openly questioning Jackson a few weeks ago.

“I gave up trying to read that man a long time ago,” said Parker after being benched late against the Clippers on April 4.

In eight games since then, he has shot above 33% only twice. In his last four games, he has totaled four assists.

Parker met again with Jackson before Sunday’s game to discuss his role. The topic was lousy. The timing was worse.

“It’s too bad this is happening late in the season, but that’s the way it is,” Parker said. “I just asked what I could do to help the team.”

Jackson told him he could be a leader off the bench. Parker agreed to try. But it appears he still needs to be sold.

In the second half Sunday, Parker and Farmar combined for five points and zero assists.

Their Suns counterparts of Nash and Barbosa combined for 30 points and six assists.

Nash is the two-time defending most valuable player and Barbosa is perhaps the fastest player in the league, but, goodness, wasn’t there a time when the Lakers were smart enough and good enough to figure that out?

“In the second half, we just didn’t do it,” Bryant said.

With the window closing fast on Bryant’s ability to keep doing it all himself, here’s hoping the Lakers spend the summer finally finding the ballhandling guard who can give him help.

Parker, who will be an unrestricted free agent after this season, was asked whether his benching means he no longer wants to be part of the team.

“I’m not going to answer that question,” he said.

On one seriously smushed Sunday, it appeared he already did.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.