Lakers Can't Stop the Music

By TIM KAWAKAMI

Feb. 8, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The drooping Lakers dropped Game 5 of the Western Conference finals Sunday, once again falling victim to the older, wiser, crisper Utah Jazz.

And everybody got mad and wanted to break up the team and fire the. . . .

Check that.

Watching the Jazz work its pick-and-roll, swarm-the-post, confound-the-Lakers magic in the second half only made it seem as if this was last June and the Lakers were playoff toast all over again.

Karl Malone made all the big baskets, John Stockton ran circles around the Laker guards, Shaquille O’Neal was shut down in the late-going, no Laker was able to convert crucial shots and the Jazz beat the Lakers, 100-91, before 17,505 at the Great Western Forum.

All that, all over again.

It was only the second game of the season, but, even though the Lakers were without Rick Fox and Travis Knight, the rhythm of this game felt like the thousandth repeat of this continued mismatch.

“Every time we lose to them we think we’ve learned our lesson and know better, and then the next time we play them they come along with something else to hit us with,” said Laker swingman Kobe Bryant, who had 12 rebounds, his second consecutive career high in his second consecutive start.

“It’s like when I was a kid playing my father--he’s getting older, he can’t beat me, and then he finds another trick here or there and he wins. It stings, especially because it’s them.”

Again.

The trick Sunday was slicing into the Lakers’ 13-point second-quarter lead with a 10-2 run to end the half, making the score 47-42 at the break, letting Bryon Russell carry the third quarter with 12 points, then going to the bank with Stockton and Malone.

If you need to be reminded that the Jazz have won eight of the last nine playoff games against the Lakers (and the last two playoff series), you should hand over your season tickets to Tia Carrere or Rob Lowe or somebody else who needs them.

In the first two quarters, O’Neal dominated Greg Ostertag and Todd Fuller, scoring 23 of his game-high 37 points. O’Neal also had a game-high 14 rebounds.

But the Laker center could manage only seven points in the fourth quarter (on two-of-six shooting), as the Laker offense screeched to a halt against Utah’s less-talented but battle-tested squad.

At the same time, the Jazz offense started percolating. Utah scored 58 points in the second half, including 30 in the fourth. Malone scored 19 of his 28 in the second half; Stockton scored 16 of his 26 in the same time frame.

“That team over there, they always play smart,” O’Neal said. “We really didn’t play smart in the fourth quarter. . . .

“It’s very frustrating, but this is a long, short season. We still have a lot of games.”

There are precisely 48 games left, starting tonight in San Antonio, and, after Friday night’s victory over Houston, the best the Lakers can do is go 49-1.

And then maybe still lose to Utah in the playoffs.

But that, of course, would be reading too much into this one February game, right?

“I think that anybody that’s going to cancel their season tickets is a little premature,” Coach Del Harris said. “We played the team that’s played for the championship the last two years, we had a good game with them, they beat us.

“I mean, it’s that simple. But a lot of people major in over-reaction. What am I going to do to change human nature?”

Harris pointed to his team’s sluggish offensive movement in the second half, not finding lanes when O’Neal was stuck in double-teams away from the basket, and not handling the ball cleanly enough in transition to trigger the Lakers’ fastbreak.

Getting technical about it, Harris said his team played the Jazz pick-and-roll effectively, pointing out that Utah ran the pick-and-roll 41 times and scored only 30 points on those plays.

But Bryant said the Jazz got its points when it needed to--something Stockton and Malone and whoever else they drag along with them are always able to do against the Lakers and pretty much everybody else.

“People are asking about our offense, but where we got beat today is on defense,” Bryant said. “We’re always going to be able to score. We scored 91, and we could’ve scored more.

“But we got beat by Utah on defense today, with that pick-and-roll again. They always do it, and they’re getting better at it.”

Of course, everybody says the Jazz are a year closer to breaking down with age and injury, and that it’s bound to be somebody else’s turn.

But, actually, since June, it’s only been eight months.

On Sunday, it seemed like a couple days.

“People are saying we’re too old, we’re losing a step, and this and that, and that’s fine,” Malone said.

“We don’t get caught up in the hype. Sometimes you perform better when there’s no pressure on you.”

As trade rumors swirl, Eddie Jones is mired in a shooting slump. Page 7

Roadblock

How Lakers have fared against the Jazz in the ‘90s, and since Shaquille O’Neal joined the team (1996-97 season):

1990 THROUGH 1995-96

Regular season: 10-14

Playoffs: Did not meet