Lakers Can’t Defend This Loss

It was all about direction and dissection. About the miles traveled, the game time, and the wrong path picked at the wrong time.

It was Gary Payton setting the groggy Lakers up, sensing the right moment to go for the kill, and the Lakers being too jet-lagged and unfocused to stop him.

With a climactic three-pointer in the final moments and many daring, darting plays throughout the game, Payton led the Seattle SuperSonics to an 82-81 victory before 18,997 at Staples Center, ending the Lakers’ home win streak at 14.

When Payton held the game in his hands, with the Lakers leading by two, he faked Ron Harper into going under Ruben Patterson’s screen, then retreated back behind the three-point line for the wide-open deciding basket with 15.9 seconds left.

Nobody stepped out, nobody stepped up, and the Lakers took their first step backward in weeks.

“It’s my fault,” said Harper, who also might have been worried about cutting off a possible drive by Payton because the SuperSonics made sure it was Shaquille O’Neal’s man who did the screening on the play.

“I ran under the damn screen. Hey, I take the blame. I don’t have a problem with that. I take the blame. . . . I didn’t think he was going to shoot the three. But he shot the three and made it. I take the blame. It’s OK. But I’m going to go home and I’m going to sleep good tonight.”

It’s fine, Harper said, if this is a one-game, one-blame losing streak.

But Harper, a three-time champion with the Chicago Bulls, also suggested that the Laker defensive effort had been deeply lacking, that there were players out there not helping teammates, and that he had a clear conscience even though it was his man who made the winning shot.

“I’m someone who comes and lays it on the line every night,” Harper said. “It’s a team game. And if we’re going to be a team, everybody’s got to lay it on the line.

“It’s easy to go down there and just shoot the basketball. They have to learn how to defend, to stop folks. At least go out there and try like you’re going to do something, and help somebody out, don’t you think?

“It ain’t that hard of a game. It’s very simple.”

Said Payton, who scored 36 points, had seven assists and generally was a big part of every good thing the SuperSonics did, “We know Shaq wants to stay in the paint, and he’s not going to come up and contest shots.

“So we ran a play with him, and fortunately Harper went underneath and I shot the shot.”

The Lakers had plenty of time to win on a last possession, and got Kobe Bryant a decent shot at it, but he missed his jumper, Robert Horry’s tip went awry, and Bryant dribbled out of bounds with 1.8 seconds left, looking for a foul after corralling the quick rebound.

There was even a glimmer of hope after that, when Chuck Person threw an errant in-bounds pass that rolled directly to Glen Rice, but Rice could not get off a short jumper in time.

It was an appropriate end to a game in which Rice made only four of 13 shots, and Bryant six of 18--but with a career-high 14 rebounds. Only O’Neal shot better than 50%, making 13 of his 21 shots and scoring 30 points.

“Even though there could be finger-pointing anywhere along the line . . . [if] there’s a lot of finger-pointing, [then] there’s three pointing back at yourself on this one,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “Because everybody had a piece of it.”

So the Lakers (32-7) lost for the second time in three games, lost at Staples for the first time since Toronto beat them Nov. 21, and seemed considerably more disturbed by this one than the loss at Indiana last Friday, which ended their 16-game winning streak.

But the Lakers also acknowledged that the 12:30 p.m. start on Martin Luther King Day gave them precious little time to recuperate from their just-completed three-game trip.

“I think we were a little slow, lethargic, at times,” Rice said. “But we’re professionals. We realize that we’ve got to come out, and we’ve got to still be able to suck it up. Today, defensively as a team, it just wasn’t there.”

Said Jackson, who pointed to the Lakers’ 39.8% shooting, “There were all the shots there we wanted. I mean, when you can’t shoot the basketball better than that . . .

“That was either leg fatigue or terrific defense, and I didn’t think that they were closing out shots. . . . A lot of guys had open shots. . . .

“Literally, we changed time zones and had what, 36 hours between games? That’s what we call an NBA attrition game--attrition in the schedule.

“But we’ll be ready on Wednesday [for Cleveland at Staples], and we have a tough week to go here. And it’s all right. We’ll recover.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Payton Place

Gary Payton tormented the Lakers again. His last seven games against them:

Feb. 21, 1999

Sonics, 92-89

26 pts. (9-22 FG)

March 5, 1999

Lakers, 103-100

34 pts. (14-23 FG)

April 4, 1999

Sonics, 113-109

33 pts. (12-24 FG)

May 2, 1999

Lakers, 91-84

29 pts. (11-24 FG)

Nov. 30, 1999

Lakers, 101-77

12 pts. (5-14 FG)

Jan. 8, 2000

Lakers, 110-100

23 pts. (9-18 FG)

Jan. 17, 2000

Sonics, 82-81

36 pts. (14-27 FG)

Avgs. vs. Lakers

27.6 points

.487 FG%

Avgs. vs. Rest

22.3 points

.437 FG%

*

CLIPPERS

San Antonio: 99

Clippers: 93

David Robinson’s

38 points helped

the Spurs hand

the Clippers their

fifth loss in a row.

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