Jackson Finds the Silver Lining in Sunday’s Loss

Not that it was wholly necessary, but Coach Phil Jackson explained Monday why he felt it wasn’t such a terrible thing that the Lakers had lost Sunday’s Game 3 in a fourth-quarter stumble.

After the loss, Jackson semi-facetiously had said he was “personally very happy about it,” but also added that the Lakers are better served by playing Game 4 here tonight on only a day’s rest instead of waiting six days before the start of the second round.

“I think it’s a good thing that we lost the game because we didn’t play well enough to win it,” Jackson said Monday.

“If we’re going to be a team that goes on in the playoffs, we’re going to have to play better than that. It was not a good game or showing by our team at all, so we have to be better.”

Which was the Lakers’ theme of the day: Losing in a hostile arena in a panicky fourth quarter was an important thing to experience early in what is expected to be a long playoff run.

“We weren’t going to go undefeated,” Kobe Bryant said. “But I think it was a good test, play at a hostile environment out here in Sacramento--this is a good ballclub--early in the playoffs. . . .

“The challenge is there to finish this thing off in a hostile environment. That’s something we’re all looking forward to.”

Jackson said he didn’t care if the Lakers might have lost a presumed air of invincibility with the loss, as long as they were the ones who were still a game within clinching the series and Sacramento was the team a game away from elimination.

“We have to be tested . . . to ride out tough things and situations on the court that make it difficult to play, missed free throws, those kinds of things,” Jackson said.

“We have to solve those problems.”

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With her husband, Laker forward Rick Fox, at her side, Vanessa Williams gave birth to a baby girl--Sasha Gabriella, 7 pounds 3 ounces--Monday in New York, and a team spokesman said the Lakers were hopeful Fox would make it back to Sacramento in time for Game 4.

Shaquille O’Neal said he had no comment but Glen Rice said he fully understood Fox’s leaving the team to attend the birth of the couple’s first child.

“We’re very much aware that Rick may not be here [for Game 4],” Rice said. “Being a family man and having a child come into the world, that’s your No. 1 priority.

“I’m 100% in his corner. Hey, he has to be there for his family. We’re going to support him and if he can make it back, fine, if not, then it just means everyone has to pick it up a little bit more.”

Jackson said that if Fox can’t make it back in time, then rookie Devean George probably will assume Fox’s role off the bench.