Jackson Has Grown Along With the Kids

Dear Lakers,

Thanks, we needed that.

Good luck,

NBC

*

Well, Phil Jackson likes it when the kids get to experience new things.

Not that seventh games are any treat, with everyone gagging under all the pressure. But, as the saying goes, that which doesn’t end my season and mark me as someone who helped blow a 3-1 lead in the conference finals makes me stronger.

This has been some weird season. For a long time, the Lakers looked like the new monsters, but dominating teams are supposed to dominate in the playoffs too.

Actually, the Lakers are doing fine, right to the point called the “elimination game” when the opposition gets desperate and/or bored. Until then, the Lakers are 8-1, after that 2-5.

When the season started, Jackson didn’t think they could win a title, as constituted. En route to 67 victories, they convinced him otherwise, but he still seemed to think he could coach them as if they were the Chicago Bulls: Prepare them thoroughly, point them in the right direction, sit back and later say a few words over the fallen bodies of their opponents.

With the Bulls, he didn’t have to worry as much about motivation since Michael Jordan helped. In his book, “Loose Balls,” Jayson Williams writes of New Jersey Net teammate Scott Burrell telling him how hard he practiced when he played in Chicago.

“I asked him why he was killing himself,” Williams writes. “He said, ‘If I didn’t go hard, Michael Jordan would have busted my [rear end].’

“I said, ‘Scottie, ain’t you a grown man?’

He said, ‘Yeah, but it was Michael Jordan and I believed him.’ ”

Nothing that happens today can change the fact that Jackson has done a great job here. In between jibes at assorted semi-civilized redneck jackals, he dared to zing his stars, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, into a notion of accountability that helped them take their games up a level.

But there are times when Jackson’s so relaxed, it’s difficult to tell what he’s up to. Coaching the Lakers? Letting them work through their problems? Giving them lessons in life?

Tactically, he can be casual, indeed, as he suggested by letting Portland go 20-0 in Game 2, uninterrupted by timeouts. Nor is he inclined to break the triangle and set the screens that might let Glen Rice become Glen Rice again, or double-team to keep Rasheed Wallace from pounding the Laker forwards into the ground like tent pegs.

The Bulls were ravenous and instinctive. During their 1996 strafing of Miami in the Eastern Conference finals, ESPN’s Jack Ramsay replayed two sequences. In the first, three Bulls swarmed Alonzo Mourning. In the next, with the Heat in the same set, no Bull double-teamed. Mourning never knew what was coming next.

These are the Lakers. Their stars are younger, they haven’t even been to the big rodeo yet and their invitation for this season is pending.

CONSOLATION BRACKET GETS A REST

Of course, today’s winner automatically becomes the favorite for the title.

However, three of the first five games will be in the Indiana Pacers’ Conseco Fieldhouse, where they shoot the lights out. Ask the Lakers and Trail Blazers, who lost there this season.

Nevertheless, problems cropped up in the last series, when the Pacers found themselves struggling to defend against the New York Knicks, who don’t generally keep anyone awake at night.

Finally, Indiana’s Jalen Rose came out and announced, “We’re a slow team.”

Said Coach Larry Bird, no one to pretend: “The only thing we can do is get quicker people.”

They’d better move fast, because it’s only three days until the finals. They should pick up some big players too, because Portland has a lot of them and O’Neal outscored Rik Smits, 53-16, in their meetings.

The Lakers and Trail Blazers aren’t that overpowering, but the finals look like mop-up action.

NIGHT WHEN LIGHTS WENT OUT IN GOTHAM

There’s something desperate about the way New Yorkers love their Knicks, embodied in this send-off by the New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica before Game 6: “We will find out tonight how much they have left. They are asked to play one more great game to give us all one more Sunday.”

Well, the Lakers and Trail Blazers are on TV today, if that’s any help.

There should be something desperate about their love because the Knicks’ last two postseason runs have been so improbable as to resemble a gift from the gods.

Nor is time on the Knicks’ side. They start a thousand-year-old center and a 6-foot-5 power forward with three guards and rely on their defense. They have tough hides and a smart coach, but it doesn’t add up to a rosy future.

Patrick Ewing, who’s actually 37, has one season on his contract and is doomed to spend his last days in New York, trying to ignore an ongoing debate among fans, the media and even teammates about his usefulness. In the wake of comments by Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby, even Coach Jeff Van Gundy, Ewing’s arch-defender, concedes that some players harbor doubts.

“I do believe that some of our other players are starting to let the excuse of him be an excuse for their poor play,” Van Gundy said before Game 6. “And I think there’s a real danger in that. . . . It’s an easy out and excuse--’I can’t do well because Pat’s on the floor.’ ”

Said Bird, Ewing’s friend from the original Dream Team: “It’s terrible how he gets treated here. Just terrible. After everything he’s done for them, it’s not right.”

The Knicks are committed to a $70.5-million payroll next season, meaning they are out of big moves and are sure to trigger the luxury tax that kicks in next summer.

They were something these last two springs, though. Too bad it doesn’t count for more back there, because it may not get any better for a long time.

FACES AND FIGURES

Van Gundy, upset that the New York media got Chris Childs and Ewing to guarantee victory before Game 6: “It’s just like that Georgetown motto after every loss. It must be passed down from generation to generation: ‘We were the better team.’ Every Georgetown center says it after every series they lose. [Dikembe] Mutombo said it after we beat Atlanta [in a 4-0 sweep last spring.] Mourning said it this year. Patrick said it before. And Othella Harrington, when Vancouver makes it, he’ll say it too. Now we’ve got everybody guaranteeing everything.” . . . This should make them feel a lot better in Indiana: Referee Jess Kersey, who counted Larry Johnson’s three-point basket because of continuation in last spring’s famous four-point play, told ESPN magazine he blew the call. . . . Despite speculation the 76ers will trade Allen Iverson, the odds on anyone giving up a major star for him seem remote, so he and Coach Larry Brown probably will go on torturing each other. Said Brown, pointedly not denying reports that Iverson is being shopped: “There are a lot of things over the years that he has done that maybe people think you might get tired of.”

Who else but Dallas owner Mark Cuban would be on the verge of booting Don Nelson upstairs, then decide Nellie was irreplaceable as coach after the Mavericks’ late-season run and extend his contract for three years? Nelson may have had his problems recently, but every few years, someone hands him another

$10 million. Maybe he really is a genius. . . . Cuban to the Source Sports: “I’m so gangsta, the NBA doesn’t want to [mess] with me.” . . . Actually, they’re probably too busy laughing, or crying.