This Series Really Starts Saturday

So this is what a pothole looks like. So this is how it feels.

Scottie Pippen smirking at you. Charles Barkley climbing on you. Sam Mack knocking you on the seat of your pants with the seat of his pants.

So this is what it is like, being jarred into mortality.

Brent Price grabbing loose balls from you. Othella Harrington setting picks that smother you. Thousands in pressed blue jeans shouting country-fried insults at you.

So this is it. Being outhustled and outplayed by a team you outclass. So this is losing. And looking disheveled doing it.

It has been so long, such splendidly easy riding for six glorious games, the Lakers had almost forgotten.

Thursday, they were reminded during a 102-88 loss to the Houston Rockets in Game 3 of a first-round playoff series that should be done by now.

Instead, other things are finished.

A six-game winning streak. A warming sense of teamwork. A cold-blooded confidence.

And other things are just beginning.

A test of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s supposedly renewed relationship. A test of Glen Rice’s commitment to the teamwork he preaches. A test of Robert Horry’s value as a veteran.

A test of Kurt Rambis’ ability to make it all work.

“If anybody thought we would waltz through this series in three games, we were kidding ourselves and you guys,” Rambis said after the Lakers shot 38%, were outrebounded, 54-42, had the ball stolen nine times, and lost nearly every battle of wills.

Also beginning, of course, is this series.

Best of one, Saturday afternoon, at this same Compaq Center.

It is officially Game 4, but the Lakers do not want any part of a deciding Game 5.

That game would be at the Forum, but the Lakers would be backpedaling there with everything to lose, while the Rockets would be bouncing there with absolutely nothing to lose.

So it needs to end here, in two days, in a game that cannot resemble Thursday’s game.

“They did their homework,” Rice said. “Now we need to do our homework.”

First subject, Composure 101.

The topic arose Thursday with 6:10 left in the second quarter, the exact time when series actually began.

The Lakers had already blown most of an early 11-point lead, but were still hanging on by four when Price dribbled off a pick by Harrington.

In trying to figure out who would cover whom, O’Neal and Derek Fisher collided. Harrington was left open down the middle. He dunked. The crowd stomped and roared.

At that moment, if you closed your eyes, you could have imagined this was Utah, and that was Stockton to Malone, and all was lost.

Maybe the Lakers did just that.

“We let the Rockets do things that took us our of our game plan, we did things we didn’t want to do, things that we had not talked about,” Rambis said.

Second subject, Aggressiveness 101.

With 4:38 left in the third quarter, the Rockets’ evening was typified when Price outran two Lakers to retrieve a jump ball, then turned around and swished a three-pointer to regain a lead they had momentarily lost.

“It always seemed like they were the ones getting a hand on the ball, making the hustle play,” Rambis said. “We weren’t organized. We weren’t poised.”

Third subject, Concentration 101.

Shortly after Price’s heroics, the Lakers methodically regained the lead, at 68-67 with 3:11 remaining. Then they lost it--their touch, their tenacity, all of it--for good.

Barkley was shoved by Horry, but simply grabbed a pass and scored over him.

Shaq missed a shot. Shaq missed another shot. Rice lost the ball. Shaq missed another shot. And another shot.

Pippen made three consecutive jumpers against Bryant and Rick Fox, and that was that.

“Defense and rebounding is a five-man job for our team,” Rambis said. “We all went down.”

And they all knew it.

“Their effort was a little bigger than our effort,” Derek Harper said.

And this from Rice, who made only five of 13 shots and never seemed in sync when he wasn’t the focus of the offense: “I don’t think we played with the same type of togetherness they did.”

Come Saturday, some of this will surely change.

Bryant needs only to stay out of early foul trouble, and surely he can hold Pippen to fewer than 37 points.

Also, it is unlikely that Shaq--the league’s leader in field-goal percentage--will miss 13 of 22 shots again.

What is in question--what has always been in question with these new era Lakers--is all those demons.

Are they back? And how many? And for how long?

As any Laker fan knows, the only thing more agonizing than watching them hit a pothole is wondering what it will look like when--or if--they pop out.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.