Lakers Have Left Themselves Wide Open to Criticism

A day later, the attack was even more aggressive, chaotic, and horrifying to behold.

Not a double-, triple- or even quadruple-team, but a multitudinous-media-hydra-team (cut off one camera lens, and three more shall grow!), pinning Laker Coach Phil Jackson against the practice-court wall and poking for solutions to all the penetrating questions.

Is there anything the Lakers can do to revive their offense if the Portland Trail Blazers continue their fierce double- and triple-teaming of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant? Especially now that this 1-1 series is moving to Portland’s raucous Rose Garden starting Friday for two games? And given that the Lakers are 1-3 on the road in these playoffs?

What in the world happened during that bleak eight-point Laker third quarter during Monday’s 29-point Trail Blazer triumph in Game 2?

Was that a single sudden, treatable outbreak of Miami Heat-itis, or is there something serious brewing here?

“Guys just had wide-open shots,” Jackson said after Tuesday’s film review with the players. “I mean, this is the NBA, guys have got to make shots in this game.

“Outside of [Ron] Harper, who’s still a good enough percentage shooter from three-point range to be credible, we had guys who are good three-point shooters taking shots, guys who are good shooters taking jump shots, like Kobe, that just didn’t connect.

“Shaq had a couple shots in there, in the lane, he really didn’t have a lot of easy looks. The rest of our team had to step up and make them.”

Jackson, echoed by his players, emphasized that there are no major changes necessary in the Laker offensive strategy--tweaks in the movement of the ball and the method and rhythm of delivering it to O’Neal.

But mostly, Jackson suggested, it’s about A.C. Green, Robert Horry, Harper, Brian Shaw, Glen Rice and the rest of the Laker shooters making the shots when they are there, as they have for much of this 75-victory season.

And the Lakers made sure to remind themselves and the media that all is not lost with the scene shifting to Portland. The Lakers won there Feb. 29 in the biggest game of the regular season.

“Phil told us early on in the playoffs that we weren’t going to stay pure at home, and we didn’t,” Shaw said. “And he said that we were going to have to, at some point, win some games on the road during the playoffs.

“So now we’re in a position that we’re going to have to do that. . . . There’s still a lot of basketball left to be played. I still feel as confident as ever about our ballclub.”

Said O’Neal, held to 23 points in Game 2 after having scored 41 in Game 1, “Playoffs is a game of adjustments. They adjusted well in Game 2, now we just have to adjust to Game 2.

“Now it’s going to be a big test for us, and I’m sure we’ll step up to the challenge.”

The situation, simplified: If Scottie Pippen and Rasheed Wallace are going to abandon their men to reach at O’Neal, even before the ball comes inside, or hound Bryant when he touches it, then the Lakers left unattended have to do something about it.

Pippen’s experience in the triangle offense allowed him to wander away from Harper or whomever he was guarding, and station himself directly where the Lakers wanted to pass.

“We’ve got to do something to keep Scottie Pippen busy--that’s obvious,” Laker assistant Tex Winter said. “He can’t be a rover out there.

“Scottie’s trying to guard everybody on the team, and doing a pretty good job of it, except for maybe the guy he’s assigned to guard.”

Jackson said the Trail Blazers’ determination to strangle O’Neal’s opportunities is similar to what Sacramento did in Round 1, using Chris Webber as the active doubler after O’Neal’s 46-point Game 1 romp.

O’Neal has averaged 41.3 points in the three Game 1s of these playoffs--and 26.4 in the other games, when the defenses have redoubled their attention inside.

“Instead of one guy, they’re doing it with two,” Jackson said of Portland. “And it’s leaving even more holes in their [defense], if we’ll take advantage of it.”

In Game 1, Portland used the same quick double-teams on O’Neal and Bryant, but Rice made five of his eight shots, two of them three-point baskets; Horry made three three-point shots, Shaw made three of his four shots, and the Lakers made eight of their first 12 three-point tries.

In Game 2, nobody other than O’Neal made more than three shots.

“They played us that way all year, even during the regular season,” Shaw said. “So we’re going to have to make shots. And they’re going to keep daring us.”

It would also be nice, Jackson said, if the officials called some illegal-defense violations when the Trail Blazers kept four men in the key focused on O’Neal.

“But it’s so difficult, it’s such a nebulous thing, that we can’t count on that happening, because these guys aren’t competent enough to do that,” Jackson said.

“There’s a couple times when we’ve stopped the tape, there’ll be four guys in the lane, two on the wrong side, two that shouldn’t be in the lane. . . .

“So guys know how dedicated they were to stopping the ball going in to Shaq. And that’s understandable. This is the player that’s the frontal attack of what we do. So they made an all-out effort to stop his charge.

“But that’s happened every series--every series he’s started out with a big game in the first game, [so in the] second game things changed. He’s going to have to find and we’re going to have to find another way.”

O’Neal said it wouldn’t be good for the team if he tried to attack the hard double-teams by shooting quicker or just trying to power through.

“I have three strong, long guys doubling me,” O’Neal said. “In order for this team to go far, it’s not going to be me scoring 40 and nobody else doing anything.”