This Gives One Reason to Pause

For all their fast-forward ability and rewind resilience, the Lakers proved again Friday they are still mostly adept at one button.

Pause.

The button we push for food or bathroom breaks, the Lakers push for domination breaks.

As quickly and easily too.

Could you hold everything up a second, Los Angeles? The balloons? The Randy Newman song? We’ll be right back.

The Lakers pushed pause again Friday, keeping it there from the first moments to the final embarrassments in a 120-87 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 of the NBA finals.

Surprised the little sucker is still working.

So far in the playoffs the Laker are 11-2 before elimination games.

And 3-6 when it counts.

And have now been thumped in a game that counted so much, some idiots boldly predicted they would win.

Oh, well. That’s OK, Lakers. Push that button. We can wait. We’re used to it by now.

But this is about as fun as confetti in your soup.

What could have been an NBA championship victory against a cornered opponent now becomes a cross-country trip to uncertainty.

Certainly, Laker fans, you can be happy that your beloved will now return to your house for their coronation.

As long as you believe that a team that lost two consecutive home games to Portland--and needed a virtual miracle to avoid losing a third--cannot lose two consecutive home games again.

As long as you believe that the Pacers couldn’t shoot 75% in one quarter again.

And the Lakers won’t be outrebounded by 12 again.

And Kobe Bryant--that’s MJ, as in missed jumper--can’t clank 16 of 20 shots again.

Of all the places to pause, a three-games-to-two lead is not a bad one.

Or is it?

No team has ever recovered from a three-games-to-one deficit to win an NBA title.

But then again, until two weeks ago, no team had ever overcome a 15-point deficit to win a Game 7 of anything.

The only thing certain Friday is that this is getting old, listening to the crowing of the resurrected.

“We know California is ready to celebrate, we heard about the parade they had planned,” Jalen Rose said. “That won’t be tomorrow, though.”

Listening to the grouching of the coach.

“I don’t like to think of a team that has championship quality in it that loses by 33 points,” said Phil Jackson.

Listening to the promises of the beaten.

“We have to look ourselves in the face, look at that mirror,” Derek Fisher said. “We just didn’t come out tonight ready to play.”

Here’s how not ready:

The Lakers began the game by running three plays for Glen Rice.

He was fouled on the first play--missing one of the two free throws.

He was charged with an offensive foul on the next play.

He missed a jumper on the third play.

The Lakers trailed, 7-1.

Rice finished with 11 points, no rebounds, and could have no complaints.

“Any time we get a team putting a lot of pressure on the defense, you have to take the time to execute a little bit better on offense,” Rice said. “It just didn’t happen.”

The resurgent cheers of 18,345 at Conseco Fieldhouse might indicate it didn’t happen for the Lakers because there was no way this town or team would let Larry Bird lose his last home game as Pacer coach.

“You look around and, in some ways, it was like we weren’t mean to win,” Fisher said.

The loose play of Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose--combining for 57 points--might indicate that it didn’t happen because the Pacers felt no pressure.

“We absolutely, positively had nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Miller said.

But what happened most of the time, with the Lakers rushing their offense and sliding through their defense, indicated something else entirely.

“We seemed to abandon the persistence of execution,” Rick Fox said.

In other words, they pushed that pause.

Young teams do that. Growing teams do that.

Heck, there were even times when the great Chicago Bulls would do that, once even losing to Utah at home in Game 5 of the finals despite having a three-games-to-one lead.

But to do it six times in one spring?

This was so crazy, Kobe looked like he took a special sleeping pill after his Game 4 heroics and woke up four years younger.

He didn’t just miss shots, he missed them from long distances, in fallaway positions, against a defense that backed off so much, he did not take one foul shot.

“I think Kobe Bryant held himself to eight points,” Miller said.

To which Kobe replied, “It’s really no biggie when you think about it.”

Well, Shaquille O’Neal never seems to have these sorts of games, and once again he was the only one out there who worked it at both ends, scoring 35 points with 11 rebounds.

How about Fisher, the team’s little gentleman, screaming a well-defined, nationally televised curse word early in the fourth quarter after being called for a foul on Miller.

And how about Miller turning that into four successful free throws on one play, as many as any Laker made the entire game.

“It was just a night that was out of the ordinary,” Fisher said.

The Pacers know the Lakers are confident of returning to normal.

“I think they’re just waiting to get home now,” Bird said. “I still think they feel very good about themselves, two games at home.”

Two games, but only one more chance to pause.

It might be a good time for the Lakers to grab the remote and get it right.

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