Long Wait for Winning Feeling

So this is how it looks.

The big man hugs his mother and weeps. The bright kid jumps on a table and bounces. Through a fine mist of a purple-and-gold confetti snowstorm, a city dances around them.

So this is how it sounds.

A train rolling through Staples Center, an airplane landing outside, different accents, varied tongues, one three-hour, deafening, glorious noise.

“I love L.A.,” croons the singer.

“We love it!” shouts the town.

So this is how it feels, after 12 long years, to again live in a place where a professional sports team takes the very best of that place and captures the globe with it.

From a kneeling Orel Hershiser in 1988 to a leaping Shaquille O’Neal on Monday, the faintly flickering torch has been passed.

Today it burns deeply again in the spirit of a town that has been brought together through two words that work in any accent, any language, any neighborhood.

World champions.

So describes the Lakers after their 116-111 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Game 6 of the NBA finals Monday gave them a four-games-to-two series win.

It was this city’s first professional sports championship since the Dodgers won the 1988 World Series, a period marked.

World champions.

Idiots tried to ruin it afterward as idiots usually do, with a disturbance in the streets. But it is hoped those images do not last, and will not stain a triumph for the other 99.9%.

With 18,997 screaming in the Staples Center, and thousands more watching on a giant screen outside, the Lakers created a new reality for a place usually brought together under vastly different circumstances.

This time, the earthquake was O’Neal, who bulled through the Pacer defense for 41 points before tenderly embracing mom.

“Those were tears of joy,” he said later. “I just want to thank this city for being so patient with me.”

The mudslide was Kobe Bryant, whose intensity blanketed the Pacers before his 21-year-old boyishness landed him on a table.

“Man, I didn’t know champagne hurt so much when it got in your eyes,” he said smilingly, typically.

And the smog? It was everyone else, a group usually considered bit players, but on this night penetrating everywhere, with important 3-point baskets from Robert Horry and Rick Fox and free throws from Glen Rice.

“This one is for the city,” said guard Derek Fisher. “They have been through so much with us . . . from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the San Fernando Valley. This is for them.”

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In the end, it was a team very much like its city, talented but growing, sometimes brilliant, sometimes confused.

It began the playoffs as the team with the best record in the NBA, but was pushed to a fifth game in a five-game first-round series with the Sacramento Kings, then later pushed to a seventh game in the seven-game Western Conference series with Portland Trail Blazers.

After overcoming a 15-point deficit in the final 10 minutes to defeat the Trail Blazers and advance to the NBA finals--one of the most dramatic comebacks in NBA playoff history--the Lakers walked into what was expected to be an easy series against the Pacers.

“But you know we never do anything easy,” Fisher said.

And so they ended up Monday in a sixth game, the score tied with 5:16 remaining, moments from allowing the Pacers to force a seventh game, knowing that they had probably run out of miracles.

So what happens?

Robert Horry makes a flying shot down the middle.

Ron Harper steals a pass.

O’Neal hits a hook shot.

O’Neal forces a wild layup by Jalen Rose.

Bryant hits a jumper over Rose.

The Pacers, suddenly trailing by 6, call time out. Bryant struts back to the bench while patting his hand against his chest as if to say, this one is mine.

And that was that.

“The crowd took over from there,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “It was quite a night.’

For plenty of people.

This is, first, a championship belonging to Jerry Buss.

He is not the perfect owner, but he’s in the perfect town for it.

He’s flashy, fun-loving, an entertainer who likes to do it big, and do it right. And especially likes to do it when everybody says he can’t.

A year ago, there were cries for him to sell the team after he eccentrically forced Dennis Rodman upon us, and tentatively agreed to let Kurt Rambis hold it all together.

Buss was criticized for lacking vision, for losing his touch.

But like his town, he can take a punch.

He rid himself of Rodman, reassigned Rambis and spent plenty of his money on the one toy that would make all this work, a guy by the name of Phil Jackson.

This is, second, a championship belonging to Jerry West.

The team’s vice president and creator spent the postseason hidden in front of a TV, or in a room next to that TV, buried in fears that his creation would disintegrate as it had done the last four seasons.

After all, he brought O’Neal and Bryant together when folks said it might not work. He traded for Rice and Horry when folks said they were finished.

He took as many daring chances with this team as he did as a player.

And, of course, on Monday, that shot dropped.

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His Lakers brought this city a championship by mirroring the best parts of this city’s soul.

Easy to look at, but tough as traffic.

Flashy, but fundamental.

And a daily celebration of diversity.

They are a 77-year-old white assistant coach, and a black superstar guard who should just be graduating from college.

They are a quiet, aging forward who wears a stuffed bear on his head . . . and a rollicking young center who has a Superman tattoo on his biceps.

They have a radio announcer who has not missed a Laker game in 35 years . . . and a head coach who has been with them for just one.

Their offense was officially known as a triangle, but they pounded through it like cymbals.

They did yoga during practices, and rapped afterward.

They grew up in the Bahamas, and Salt Lake City, and Newark, and even the exotic confines of Portland.

At times they were a Rocky Horry Picture Show . . . and other times they were a Harper’s Bizarre . . . but mostly they will be remembered for that alley-oop pass from Brian Shaw to the big man that was known as the Shaw-Shaq Redemption.

“Hard work pays off,” Bryant said. “If at first you don’t succeed, you keep pushing, because you’re going to get there eventually.”

When did he know Monday’s game was wrapped up?

“The opening tip,” Bryant said.

Whatever.

The organization is still Magic--Earvin Johnson was on the sidelines during Monday’s game and hugging players afterward.

But today, it is once again majestic.

So this is how it feels.

Twelve long years, and worth the wait.

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

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More Laker coverage

CHAMPIONS: Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant carried the Lakers to a 116-111 win over the Indiana Pacers. S1

THE FUTURE: The Laker team that will defend this title probably will look different. Mark Heisler’s column. S4

PARTY WEDNESDAY: For those in the mood to celebrate, the downtown parade will wind up at Staples Center. S8

SPECIAL EDITION: On Wednesday, a look at the Lakers’ regular season and their up-and-down playoff run.