Another Round to the Jazz

After three days of scheming and dreaming, on Friday night the Lakers dramatically unveiled their strategy to overcome the Utah Jazz in the NBA Western Conference finals.

Rope-a-dope.

That can be the only explanation for what would otherwise be the most callow big-game exhibition of basketball in this city in years.

The Lakers must figure, let the Jazz players tire themselves out.

Let them grab every loose ball. Let them knock you down on every pick. Let them outhustle, outwork, outthink you from baseline to baseline.

Let the suckers tire themselves out. Then make your move.

It hasn’t happened yet. The Lakers lost, 109-98, Friday, falling behind a historically insurmountable three-games-to-none, but who knows?

Maybe, the Lakers figure, the Jazz finally will grow weary of shooting so many open shots, weary of passing to so many open men, and then they can make their move.

Or, maybe not.

Maybe Friday night, the Lakers were simply unprepared.

Maybe they still aren’t tough enough to beat a tough team in a big game in their own building.

Maybe, with the notable exception of the amazing Shaquille O’Neal, these marquee players still don’t have a clue about winning a marquee game.

The question will be answered soon, perhaps as early as Sunday’s Game 4, depending on how badly everyone wants to return to Salt Lake City for further calisthenics.

“You can call it what you want to call it,” said Nick Van Exel, who made two of 13 shots and repeatedly was beaten by Jazz guards. “But we’re just losing to a better team.”

That the Jazz is a better team, there is no question.

As far as putting a name on what happened here Friday, you will find little argument with “embarrassing.”

A city that has fallen in love with these guys over the last two months showed up at the Forum standing and screaming.

While the Lakers took their chairs.

In a first half in which Karl Malone and John Stockton combined for only six points, the Lakers trailed by six.

Could it have been that three-for-17 shooting by the Laker guards, including a one-for-10 from Eddie Jones that was even uglier than it sounds?

Yet fans still chanted “Ed-die, Ed-die.”

At this point, it is safe to say that the Lakers would have fared better this spring if the fans were chanting, “Mitch-Mitch-Mitch.”

But give the crowd credit.

With 3:10 left in the second quarter, after Rick Fox threw up an airball layup, they began booing, probably the earliest those sounds have been heard in a landmark Laker game in history.

Then came the third quarter, when the Lakers grabbed the lead utilizing the only two facets that can consistently beat the Jazz--defense and hustle.

Corie Blount blocked a Malone shot. Van Exel stole a rebound from Chris Morris. Blount had his hand in Malone’s face on a missed jumper. Malone was frustrated into an offensive foul.

The Lakers took a one-point lead late in the period and . . .

“And it didn’t bother them,” Blount said with amazement. “They just kept doing what they were doing.”

While the Lakers again showed their immaturity by trying to become instant heroes.

Howard Eisley made an open jumper. Jones countered with a missed three-point shot.

Malone scored off a pick and roll. Rick Fox missed a three-pointer.

And so it went as the fans collectively sighed, the air squeezed out of their hopes.

“When we went on that run, I thought that was going to be enough to get them,” Van Exel said. “But . . . “

As the season winds down to its torturous finish, there will be plenty of time for buts.

The Lakers won 61 games, but . . .

But do they have the players to get them to the next level?

But do these young gunners respond to the professorial coach when everything is on the line?

But with Jerry West probably leaving, what are they going to do now?

With the end upon us, the memories, unfortunately, will not be of brilliance in Seattle, but the failings here.

You can talk about the blowout in Game 1, or the Lakers’ fourth-quarter disintegration in Game 2, but Friday was the series.

This was the foot on the throat of a team that, having been shouting since March, will now probably be silenced until September.

The memories will be of an ill-advised alley-oop pass from Robert Horry to nobody late in the fourth quarter with the Lakers down by four.

The memories will be of Shandon Anderson knocking an important rebound off the Lakers out of bounds even later, with the Lakers still down by four.

But perhaps the lasting memory should be of what happened with 8:27 remaining in the third period and the Jazz holding a nine-point lead.

Morris, another aging Jazz player who still understands big games, hustled himself right out of his shoe, forcing a timeout.

How many guys on the other team can you imagine doing that?