Fox Takes Good With the Bad

It was only a week ago that Rick Fox was musing about the ebb and flow of the long NBA season, about the shots that fall and the ones that don’t, the victories that lift a team and the losses that discourage it.

Finally, he held his hands out, as if he could only ride the wave, powerless despite a fanatical effort that some days is good enough and others isn’t.

Fox, 31, has this pleasant perspective about the grind. He chuckles when his game is not quite right and shrugs when it is.

On Monday afternoon, when he made some shots and scored some points against Portland, Fox found his relatives amid the sellout crowd at Staples Center, patted his head and pointed.

“That’s a little family thing,” he said after the 109-104 defeat.

Fox had his best game on Christmas Day. He scored a season-high 22 points, two days after he matched his season-high 15 points.

He made four three-point baskets, duplicating a season high from three games before. He shot a season-high seven free throws, suggesting a much more aggressive bent--twice Fox had gone seven or more games without trying even one free throw.

Fox took 12 rebounds Friday in Dallas. He played 35 minutes Monday, 34 on Friday, and 35 in Miami last week.

If there is only one good reason the Lakers have won five of six games, with four of the victories on the road, it’s probably Kobe Bryant’s even play.

But if there are two reasons, then Fox’s rediscovered shooting stroke is a factor.

In the last six games, Fox is averaging nearly 15 points, primarily because he is 16 for 24 from beyond the three-point line.

From the muck of a miserable first six weeks of shooting, Fox is ranked eighth in the league in three-point shooting, at 42.9%.

“His three-point shooting is right where it’s got to be for him to be effective for us,” Coach Phil Jackson said, “and for us to be a good team.”

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As Fox found his range, rookie Mike Penberthy missed some shots and found his playing time cut.

Penberthy tried only 11 three-point shots in his last six games, not enough to keep a shooter sharp, and made three of them. He played fewer than 10 minutes in each of the last three road games and then missed all three of his shots in 14 minutes Monday.

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The Lakers have two five-game winning streaks in their first 20 games. After the first, from Nov. 19-28, when they beat such notables as Chicago, Golden State and the Clippers, they lost five of their next nine.

After the second, much more impressive given their road victories at Toronto, Miami, Houston and Dallas, the Lakers lost at home to Portland.

None of it really bothered Jackson.

“I thought that our struggle was good,” he said. “I always think that, though. As long as you’re not struggling in the playoffs or in some dire situation in the playoffs, I think it builds team unity. I think it builds character for a basketball club to go through some duress and to have to work themselves into a position to get out of it and find a way through it.”

More chance for unity is imminent. The Lakers play at Phoenix on Thursday, against the chippy Clippers on Saturday and against Utah on Jan. 3.

“We just have to go one game at a time, that’s all it is,” Jackson said. “If you put a streak together, that’s what you do, you start playing a game at a time and getting that notion that every game has a certain importance. When you carry that to the game and play every play, every quarter in the course of a game, then I think the focus becomes right for a basketball club. Our focus has not been good early in the season.”