Jackson Bemoans ‘Horrible’ Practice

The backups were set to run and ordered to mirror the Sacramento Kings’ frantic offensive style.

So what happened in Tuesday’s Laker practice--the first since Sunday’s Game 1 victory over the Kings?

According to Coach Phil Jackson, the purple-team players of the second unit ran the Laker starters (in gold) right off the floor.

“You should’ve seen the gold team play,” Jackson said Tuesday afternoon. “They were horrible.

“They couldn’t get up and down the court. . . . We just weren’t moving well. We developed a purple team that would run up and down the court to try and bring this fastbreak-type offense to our consciousness and our play. And the gold team didn’t respond.”

Jackson suggested that perhaps the first-teamers were pacing themselves, knowing that there was one full day of practice left before Thursday’s Game 2 at Staples Center.

He also suggested that the long pre-workout film session (almost an hour) might have tightened up the players’ bodies.

“These guys were awful today,” Jackson said. “It was one of our worst practices.

“We’re fortunate we’re not playing today because they came out and they couldn’t play. I had to run some of them off of the floor. . . .

“Maybe we watched film too long, went over too many execution things. But our minds weren’t here. We’ll have to be better than that to get ready for this next game.”

The film work, Jackson said, concentrated on getting back more efficiently on defense to stop the King transition game, reacting better to penetration by Jason Williams and Chris Webber, running the offense a little more smoothly instead of relying almost solely on Shaquille O’Neal.

“That’s going to be our [key], whether we’re going to be good or not good, or we’re going to be champions or not champions,” Jackson said.

“Because we’re not going to be able to go through this whole playoffs throwing the ball into Shaq and expecting 40 points a night out of him.”

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O’Neal, for his part, said that, with three days between games, the Lakers would be sharp and prepared Thursday.

“We’ll be ready--we’re just watching a lot of film,” O’Neal said. “We just have to play smart and get back on defense.

“[Sacramento] is a run-and-gun type team. If we do those things, we should be fine. We match up with them very well. . . .

“One more day for preparation, then we should be ready for Thursday.”

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Though the Lakers have won four consecutive games against the Kings, including the last three in the regular season, and each progressive victory has appeared to be more decisive than the last, Kobe Bryant said he is sure Sacramento will come out firing in Game 2.

“You could sense at some point in [Game 1], their confidence was slipping,” Bryant said. “It wasn’t as high as it usually is. Because they’re an emotional team, they feed off of their energy. So yes, in the game at some point, it wasn’t really there.”

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Travis Knight, suffering from flu, missed his second consecutive workout.