VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE

What writers in San Antonio are saying about the series:

BUCK HARVEY, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

If the series ends as it started, then what looks the best?

Anything in the East. Will Perdue’s endorsement future. J.R. Reid’s sense of self.

Give it to J.R. The ex-Spur didn’t let the lights of Hollywood change his game.

But there’s also a former pots-and-pans salesman named Del Harris. Perhaps the Lakers wouldn’t have listened to Harris on Monday, because they quit listening to him before. Still, Harris was around long enough to at least understand a few basics.

He would have applied an X to an O and seen this as a chalkboard impossibility:

Somehow the Lakers played Tim Duncan head-up, while the Spurs assigned a different defender to each of Shaq’s tattoos.

How?

A harsh answer is that Kurt Rambis should have been the Clipper coach all along. Another is that Rambis has guys unwilling to play the rotating, helping defense that is the Spurs’ trademark. Either way, the trend of Game 1 is Rambis’ first crisis not involving Dennis Rodman. If Rambis lets this continue, he’ll be happy to get his assistant job back.

The stark strategy contrast pulled the Spurs ahead in the second quarter and seemingly keeps them there until it’s time for everyone to go home. For starters, the Lakers opted to play Duncan with Reid and assorted defenders not named Kevin Garnett.

The Lakers did the same with Charles Barkley in the last series, and Barkley hurt them. The Lakers did this, in part, because they don’t trust themselves defensively.

Once they start moving around to help, they fear they will give up even more.