Fantastic Start Ends in Frustration for Webber

Talk about unstoppable.

Sacramento King power forward Chris Webber was a force from the tipoff Sunday against the Lakers. Making shot after shot from all over the floor. Inside, outside, it didn’t matter. No Laker seemed to have an answer for Webber.

“Webber was a load in the first half,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said.

After watching Webber make six of his first seven shots from the field and score 14 points mostly against him in the first quarter, Laker counterpart A.C. Green was starting to get a little worried.

He had seen Webber lead the Kings’ high-flying act before and hoped they would follow their pattern and return to earth.

“Normally in the regular season, they always came back to reality,” Green said.

“That was one of the main things we had to consider and keep in mind.”

Webber, however, wasn’t cooling off much. He had 20 points by the half and then came out strong in the third by missing only two of six shots.

“C-Web was having a great game,” Sacramento center Vlade Divac said. “His attitude was great and he was really into it.”

So how did the Lakers finally shut down Webber to win Game One 1? Just ask the officials, according to the Kings.

Webber played most of the game in foul trouble and picked up his sixth foul early in the fourth quarter after scoring 28 points in only 27 minutes.

“First and foremost, they beat us but maybe if we didn’t have any refs, we wouldn’t have lost,” Webber, who made 11 of 17 field goals and set a personal playoff high in points, said.

But a closer look at the box score shows the referees couldn’t possibly be the only ones to blame for Sacramento’s loss.

Sacramento Coach Rick Adelman needed Webber badly, but mainly because starters Corliss Williamson, Nick Anderson and Divac weren’t giving him much else to work with.

Williamson scored only six points to go along with a meager two rebounds, Divac was only two of 14 from the field, and Anderson was four of 10.

In fact, if you take Webber out of the equation, the Kings as a team shot only 37.7% from the field.

The Kings might have suffered offensively because of Webber’s foul trouble, but their main problem against the Lakers was rebounding.

Sacramento only grabbed 37 rebounds, 15 on the offensive end. The Lakers had 54 rebounds, 25 on the offensive end.

Again, removing Webber from the equation, the Kings other four starters grabbed 12 rebounds, or one fewer than A.C Green and Glen Rice had combined.

When four of your players are outrebounded by Green and Rice, you know it’s going to be a long afternoon.

For the Kings, Anderson had four, Divac one and Williamson one.

For the Lakers, Green had five, Kobe Bryant five, and Ron Harper had six.

Did the Kings forget how to block out?

But outrebounding Sacramento is something the Lakers also did during the regular season.

The Kings grabbed more rebounds against the Lakers only once and that was their lone win on Dec. 8, 1999.

“If you let a team like the Lakers have those kind of opportunities, you’re dead,” Divac said.

“We know where we made mistakes so we’ll come back on Thursday and put ourselves in a position to win the game.”

Easier said than done.