Just like a pendulum, Lakers swing back

So they’re not completely heartless, gutless and mindless, after all?

The Lakers, who have walked a tightrope over the snapping jaws of crocodiles and pundits, snapped back Wednesday night, pummeling the Nuggets -- well, a little -- in a 103-94 victory, taking a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals.

Before the series, Kobe Bryant, asked about the announcement by ESPN’s Mark Jackson that he was “disgusted” with the Lakers’ effort, answered, “Mark was right.”

Of course, then came 10 more days’ worth of comments, like ESPN commentator Magic Johnson’s calling the team he owns 5% of “candy-apple soft.”

OK, so it was. Did he have to tell everyone?

“It’s funny to me, to be honest with you,” Bryant said after Wednesday’s game.

“Denver loses Game 3 and it’s just horrible decisions. We lose Game 4 so we have no heart. It’s funny to see the same people swing back and forth like a pendulum.”

Aside from the Lakers’ lack of firmness, they also could have been an NBA version of Rupp’s Runts, Kentucky Coach Adolph Rupp’s team that reached the 1966 NCAA finals, where it lost to Texas Western with no starter taller than 6 feet 5.

Actually, the Lakers are a towering team, starting two seven-footers with 6-10 Lamar Odom backing them up, but they had been overrun in this series by the NBA’s newest scourge . . . the Thuggets.

That’s the name Dallas fans gave the Nuggets in the second round, which, of course, the NBA’s leaders in tattoos took as a compliment.

In real life, the Lakers’ 7-0 Pau Gasol and 7-0 Andrew Bynum tower over the Nuggets’ Nene and Kenyon Martin, who are listed at 6-11 and 6-9, but you couldn’t tell for the first four games of the series.

Wednesday night, Bryant and Gasol, who have been double-teamed all series, waited for the defense to commit, then looked inside for Bynum, who scored all nine of his points in the first half, and Odom, the Human Mismatch who had been hanging out on the perimeter, but went to the hole all night, 19 points and 14 rebounds worth.

“They’re special when Lamar plays like that,” Denver’s Carmelo Anthony said. “When he’s out there, he’s a mismatch. . . .

“When he plays like that, they’re a tough team. So we’ve got to look forward to that for Friday.”

The Lakers had been gritty, but hardly special, adding to the growing fame of the New Nuggets, who now defend, as opposed to going to that end of the floor to await their next offensive possession, like the Old Nuggets.

In the first round, New Orleans Coach Byron Scott complained that Dahntay Jones roughed up Chris Paul. In the second, Dallas fans chanted “Thug-gets!”

In this series, Jones had already been called for a flagrant foul against Bryant in Game 3 when he was caught on video, tripping him in Game 4.

Of course, when Lakers Coach Phil Jackson mewed about the referees’ inability to control the Nuggets after Game 4, they took that as a compliment too.

“We kind of laugh a little bit that somehow within a six-week period of time, we’ve become the bad boys of the NBA,” Coach George Karl said.

“We want to play aggressive. I don’t think we want to make it -- what was Phil’s terminology? Beneath the line?

“ ‘Unsportsmanlike.’ I don’t think we’re unsportsmanlike.”

The Lakers then got a lot more unsportsmanlike, or aggressive. And like Jackson after Game 4, Karl went home mewing about the referees, noting ruefully, “It’s going to be easy to get my team up for Game 6.”

So the Lakers may or may not be back, but at least for one night, they were bad.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com