Miller Journeys Down the Yellow-Brick Road

What’s that saying again?

Oh yeah.

Home is where the brick is.

Welcome back, Reggie Miller.

And if you bend any more of our rims, you’re paying for them.

Welcome back to a land of old Riverside friends, former UCLA classmates and playground pals.

Just be careful your next 25-footer doesn’t skull any of them.

Remember Reggie, how, before the NBA finals began Wednesday between the Lakers and your Indiana Pacers, you promised to shock the world?

Consider it done.

Not with the Lakers’ 104-87 victory.

But with your one-for-16 loss.

That’s, one basket in 16 flying, falling, bouncing, rattling attempts.

Or, as many baskets as Travis Knight.

Or, one more basket than Salma Hayek, but at least she showed up in purple hair.

C’mon, Reggie. This is the main stage. Give us a show. Make it close.

One game down, and the overwhelming emotion in the packed Staples Center appears to be boredom.

You don’t shoot, the Pacers can’t win, and our town’s celebration of the conclusion of 11 years of heartache will be finished in, what, a week?

How about it, Reggie? If you can’t be yourself, can you at least be, um, Jason Williams? Heck, after Wednesday, we’ll settle for Damon Stoudamire.

Without you, this is not a fair fight.

The worst performance of Miller’s 10 postseasons looked even stranger that Hayek’s hair, and carried far more implications, even in this town.

Considering Miller has averaged 24 points in the playoffs, and scored just seven, and the Pacers lost by 17 . . . well, you do the math.

The Lakers did.

If Miller is hitting a barn with a base fiddle (to quote an Indianapolis local), the sluggish-except-for-Shaq Lakers might not have survived.

If Miller is throwing a pea in the ocean (our cliche, thank you), the Lakers’ conference finals hangover is hurting a lot more today.

“We have to be very careful,” acknowledged Brian Shaw. “We really didn’t play great defense on him. He just missed his shots. And I know he has tremendous will and will come back Friday looking to redeem himself.”

In other words. . . .

“He’s the kind of guy, I’ve never seen him be off for two straight games,” Shaquille O’Neal said.

And furthermore. . . .

“As crazy as it sounds, we feel good about where we are right now,” Pacer Mark Jackson said.

Well, let’s not get too crazy.

Maybe this is more than one game.

Maybe, in his first chance at elevating a simply great career into a championship one, Miller will never quite catch his breath.

Maybe the national spotlight has made his basket smaller, his court longer, and his hands permanently wet.

Maybe right now, Reggie Miller is thinking about that.

“I tell you what, if they continue to give me those looks, they’re going to be in trouble,” he said afterward.

OK, maybe not.

But one for 16?

That’s not the shooting of a star guard, it’s the batting of a backup catcher.

That’s not an all-star night, it’s a Cincinnati Bengals’ season.

Miller’s first shot rimmed out.

His second shot rimmed out.

And his third.

And his fourth.

The Pacers kept setting numerous screens, and he kept getting wide-open looks, and the ball kept bouncing away.

He missed his first eight shots from the field.

He didn’t make one until there was 5:42 remaining in the third quarter.

And even then, it was a one-footer, a layup.

At the time, the Pacers had closed the gap to 10, and Miller wisely stayed out of the way until they had cut it to four.

Then he tried a runner down the middle, and Shaq blocked it to Westwood, and that was that.

“It’s not uncommon for a guy in his first finals, after he’s carried us all the way and playing with a lot of confidence, to go out and struggle a bit in the first game,” Pacer Coach Larry Bird said, later adding, “Next game, I hope he takes another 17 to 25 shots.”

Of course, Bird wanted Miller to shoot so much Wednesday, he benched him for seven minutes.

It got so bad, he started actually scoring points for the Lakers.

With just over three minutes left, he tried a layup that was tipped away by Kobe Bryant, who started a fast break that ended with Shaw’s alley-oop pass and Shaq’s dunk.

By the time the game ended, a Staples Center crowd that was just warming up its “Reg-gie -----!” cheer suddenly changed direction.

And turned it into the ultimate insult.

By dropping the vulgarity.

“Reg-gie, Reg-gie,” they chanted.

Instead of trying to anger, they were satisfied with simply trying to embarrass.

Which, if you haven’t figured it out by now, won’t work.

Like they say, shooters shoot. Even when they are connecting only with their foot.

“I feel bad I only got 16 shots,” he said. “If I was going to be one for 16, I at least should have been one for 25 or something like that. I feel I didn’t get enough looks.”

Where did you say you were from again?

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

It’s Not Miller Time

Reggie Miller was only one of 16 from the field Wednesday, scoring 7 points.