Lakers Hit Back, and Not Softly

What’s a Laker to say, but . . .

“Thanks, Tim.”

So offered Nick Van Exel, so offered all the Lakers, Team Charles Atlas at least for Saturday night. This was readily apparent in the way their chests were so puffed out, the muscles that came from bench pressing an image, the pride that came with the 108-99 victory, a defeat for the Miami Heat and the words of Tim Hardaway.

The comments from the Heat point guard came the day before, when he all but called the Lakers wimps, openly questioning their toughness. Before a capacity crowd of 17,505 at the Great Western Forum, the sissies answered, not merely winning with a tough fourth quarter but also beating Miami on the boards, 57-47, an upset in that the Lakers came in 10 spots lower in rebounding percentage.

“I think we answered it tonight,” Kobe Bryant said after scoring 21 points off the bench. “It was a pretty good statement he made, trying to fire his teammates up. But we came with a ballgame, so it really doesn’t matter.”

Said Van Exel: “I think it was something we needed. We needed somebody to say we were soft and, basically, that we needed some heart. He said it, and we fed off it.”

To the surprise of no one, Hardaway’s comments found their way into the Laker locker room, faster than you could say, “Yeah, but was he right?” Maybe faster--photocopies of the portion of the front page of Saturday’s paper were taped to stalls and the wall when players arrived for the morning shootaround, blaring, most prominently, the statement that “There is only one person on their team you can’t beat on, and that is Shaq. The rest of them, you can pound on them, and pound on them, and wear on them.”

The upset was that the Lakers were bothered by what greeted them, or at least admitted to being bothered. This as opposed to playing it cool with a series of “whatevers” and then saying later how it lit a fire under them.

“It should open some eyes,” Robert Horry said. “When you’re getting bumped around, you may not realize it, but now you’ve got someone besides your coaches and teammates saying it.

“Nobody likes to be called soft. It’s like a slap in the face.”

Rick Fox, the other starting forward, the Eastern Conference transplant, the player who had sensed a growing bad reputation weeks ago, wasn’t talking before this game. That was the first sign he was especially fired up. The next was with 5:20 left in the second quarter, when Miami’s P.J. Brown came down the lane, was fouled on both sides by Fox and Van Exel, and Fox pushed Brown into the basket standard with both hands after the whistle.

Brown started to come back back at Fox, but Van Exel jumped in. Fox offered a big grin in response and several hard nods of the head, as if to challenge Brown to keep coming. He clearly seemed glad to pay the price--a technical foul--for the opportunity to counter the Hardaway claims.

Not that Fox’s toughness had been called into question in the first place; he has handled a string of bigger matchups at small forward by being more physical. But his team’s toughness, that had been challenged, in a very cut-to-the-chase manner.

“Everybody knows the history of the Lakers,” Harris said. “Even in the ‘80s--particularly in the ‘80s--the team had been called soft, as Pat Riley mentioned. But they knew how to play and win championships. The Lakers were never one of the teams in the league that was after muggers. They’ve gone after versatile, athletic players, as opposed to musclemen, thugs and intimidators.

“I don’t want this to become ‘Somebody has to go hurt someone.’ You don’t need that. You don’t need to hurt someone to make the point. That’s not tough. That’s cheap.”

The motivation that came Saturday, that was appreciated.

“Oh, sure,” Harris said. “The only thing that’s better than one of your own players challenging a teammate is an opposing player challenging your teammates. As the coach, they become tired of hearing our challenges. We have to come up with one every game. We’ll take any help we can get.”

It was O’Neal, the one who couldn’t be beat on, who beat back the Heat’s fourth-quarter rally with two big baskets down the stretch on his way to 24 points.