Going Will Get Tough--What About Lakers?

To the growing list of those who don’t think the Lakers can take a punch, add the leader of a team that could be playing them in June.

From courtside at the Great Western Forum on Friday, Tim Hardaway came out swinging.

“There is only one person on their team you can’t beat on, and that is Shaq,” he said. “The rest of them, you can pound on them, and pound on them, and wear on them.”

Hardaway is the point guard for the Miami Heat, one of the two best teams in the slam-dancing Eastern Conference.

Tonight they will play the Lakers, one of the two best teams in the waltzing West.

Hardaway was shivering in his $175 sneakers.

“You have to put a body on [the Lakers], rough them up when they come through the lane, get up on them while they are bringing the ball in,” he said. “After a while, in the fourth quarter, they won’t want to go to the hole. They won’t want any of that stuff.”

He smiled.

That stuff is flying now, doesn’t matter if the Lakers want it or not.

They are not only getting it in the lane, they are getting it in their locker room, in their living rooms, on their car radios, and now this, from the other bench, the painful perception:

The Lakers are soft.

Is it true?

Judge for yourself.

Eddie Jones fades during four quarters of pounding.

Elden Campbell plays as small as any wonderfully gifted 7-footer in the game.

The Laker guards rebound only slightly better than the Laker inactives.

The Lakers are 7-7 against the elbows of the East, and 21-2 against the West.

Maybe that last statistic is a fluke. Maybe not.

Maybe it’s something that, if it doesn’t improve, will be expanded and reiterated this spring when the Lakers are getting blown out of an NBA title series by a bunch of guys with big hips.

That is, if the Lakers are still standing then.

Maybe they can’t even survive the West, can’t win a rumble in Seattle.

Judge for yourself.

Del Harris has.

“I don’t think our guys are afraid. . . . I know they are not afraid,” the Laker coach noted.

But fearlessness and toughness are not the same thing. Parents of teenagers understand. Harris understands.

“We just haven’t learned to be as physical as you need to be,” he said. “It’s a process we just have to be better at.”

Harris said the Lakers don’t need to add pounds, but experience and inspiration.

“It takes a mentality for toughness,” he said. “If you talk about tough players in this league, very few are young guys. You need to learn how to play physical.”

A notable former Laker coach said Harris need not worry so much.

“Hey, back in the ‘80s here, they called us soft,” said Pat Riley, who directs the Heat tonight. “Just because you make things look easy, just because you are athletically gifted, that doesn’t mean you’re soft. That’s a horrible label to put on the team.”

But Riley also said this: “The Lakers are like us. They have to get to a different level mentally. Chicago has it. Utah has it. The Lakers just need to play together longer.”

Riley’s Heat has that time. While Michael Jordan is still playing, everybody in the East can afford to be patient.

The Lakers cannot. Harris cannot.

Advancing to the conference finals this season is a must. A trip to the NBA championship series is expected. A good performance there is anticipated.

This will not happen if Jones is too tired and bruised to shine in a Game 7. This will never happen if Laker guards are not going to the floor with Ron Harper, and Campbell is not mixing it up with P.J. Brown.

(Robert Horry? He’s playing poorly, he could be tougher, but he’ll never be power-forward tough. The Lakers knew this when they acquired him.)

You know the Bulls and Jazz can weather the spring storms. You sense the SuperSonics and Heat can do the same.

You have no idea about the Lakers, but you do know this:

Toughness cannot be coached.

You can teach a man self-defense, put a weapon in his hand and provide directions to the dark alley, tell him there will be a mugger waiting.

But only that man can control what happens next. It will have everything to do with his makeup. It will have nothing to do with you.

Harris has done a wonderful job this year, but he cannot teach players to be something they are not.

Which means, the Lakers need a new player. A trade by the Feb. 19 deadline. A power forward who possesses equal parts talent and snarl.

He may be impossible to find. It may cost them Eddie Jones, which would put an enormous burden on Kobe Bryant.

It would be worth the chance.

So Tim Hardaway has taken a swing.

It is Jerry West who must now swing back.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

West vs. East

The Lakers have only a .500 record in 14 games against Eastern Conference teams. How the West vs. East shapes up:

TEAM (vs. East): Pct.

Utah (10-3): .769

San Antonio (10-3): .769

Seattle (14-5): .737

Houston (6-4): .600

Phoenix (10-8): .556

Minnesota (6-5): .545

Lakers (7-7): .500

Portland (5-8): .385

Sacramento (5-8): .385

Vancouver (3-10): .231

Dallas (2-12): .143

Golden State (1-11): .083

Clippers (1-14): .067

Denver (0-12): .000

WEST (80-110): .421