Making Miller Miss Wasn’t Very Special

The Lakers took no particular credit for Reggie Miller’s dismal shooting in Game 1, saying they used the same defense Wednesday as during the regular season and that Miller struggled on his own.

Of course, keeping the same plan as the two previous meetings wasn’t a bad thing--Miller shot a combined 42.4% when the Pacers won in January and the Lakers won in March, compared to 44.8% for the season as a whole. Then came the start of the NBA finals and the one-for-16 showing, the sixth-worst ever in the championship series among players with at least 10 attempts and the poorest in 22 years, since Seattle’s Dennis Johnson missed all 14 shots.

“He missed some shots. He missed some wide-open shots,” said Ron Harper, who started on Miller and shared time on defense with Kobe Bryant. “I’m not going to sit here and say that we did a good job. He missed some shots.”

The Lakers can only hope it continues. The difference might be that Miller will be extra-motivated tonight for Game 2, additional fuel for a player who can turn conflict into boost.

“I don’t care about him,” Harper said, smiling. “I don’t care if he’s mad or not. I would be mad too. I’m just going out there to do the job that I can do. That’s it.

“I would expect him to come out firing it up. I would expect him to shoot every time he has a chance to.”

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Travis Knight hadn’t played in the previous three games. He got eight minutes total in the Western Conference finals against Portland, spread over three appearances. He had 39 total minutes in the playoffs.

And then he was sent in during the first game of the championship series.

Asked if he was surprised, Knight said, “A little bit. The coaches kept telling me to stay ready, and obviously you never know what can happen in a basketball game--foul trouble, injuries, whatever. But it was special to get in there. I was excited. I’d been running on the treadmill trying to stay in shape, just in case, so I’m glad it wasn’t all in vain.”

Knight did not play again after replacing Shaquille O’Neal for the final 1:32 of the first half, immediately after O’Neal got his second foul. But Knight had a basket and two offensive rebounds in his short stint.

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Rick Fox, who scored 11 points off the bench--nine in the fourth quarter--in Game 1, said he has been preparing himself for this championship-round moment ever since he lost as a North Carolina Tar Heel in the 1991 Final Four.

‘I’ve been waiting for this for 10 years,” Fox said. “And I’ve been telling myself, pretty much all that time, once you get here, be as calm as possible.

“I didn’t want it to be like the final game of college, when we made it to the Final Four finally, and I was so jubilant I was in a daze the whole game, and we lost the game.

“So I always told myself, when I get to the NBA finals, I’ll be poised.”