Riding in Coach

The players who know Phil Jackson, who have played for him and won with him and done that incense thing with him, they know.

Isaiah Rider versus Greenwich Mean Time is one thing.

Isaiah Rider versus Phil Jackson is quite another.

“There are two ways you can get beat up, mentally and physically,” Laker forward Horace Grant said. “I would rather have Phil’s physical punch any day. He has a way of doing things. He will make you mad. He will make you feel like you haven’t given your best. He will make you feel like you’ve let your team down.

“He punches him like this. Punches him like this. Until Phil thinks he’s there where he wants Isaiah to be, then he’ll continue like that. It’s nothing personal at all. The addition of Isaiah to this team was for a reason. That’s what Phil wants Isaiah to realize, and I think Isaiah realizes it.”

When the Lakers open the defense of their first NBA championship in 12 years Tuesday night in Portland, part of the responsibility of repeating will lie with Rider, who could not live with his previous two organizations--Portland and Atlanta--and vice versa.

Pizza Hut and Taco Bell under the same Southern California roofs was unholy union enough. Can Los Angeles bear Rider and the Lakers at Staples Center too? Shaquille O’Neal handed out $150,000 worth of Rolex watches two weeks into training camp. Rider got one. That Shaq is a sly one.

For better or worse, the Lakers and Rider are wed in the name of a second consecutive title, in the name of destiny, and in the spirit of wiping the smirks off the faces of Portland owner Paul Allen and Dallas counterpart Mark Cuban.

The champions added a shooting guard who four times in his career averaged 19 points or more. In past summers, it might have been considered a reasonable--maybe even an excessive--measure. But, this was Rider. And Jerry West was gone. And within the industry the signing was greeted with bemused smiles.

The real guffaws broke out when Jackson publicly scolded Rider, however gently, first for being late to practice on a technicality, Rider’s signature move, then for failing to report for treatment on a sprained ankle, and finally for running the offense with a selfish streak. All before the first regular-season game.

“Isaiah’s going to have to learn, either he’s going to do it Phil’s way or it ain’t no way,” said guard Ron Harper, who won three NBA championships with Jackson in Chicago and another in L.A. last year. “It ain’t what we want to do. That’s one thing I said when I first saw the door here. I told every guy, ‘We’re going to do it whatever way he says. It’s his way, not our way. It’s what Phil wants us to do.’ ”

There is a sense among Laker insiders that if Rider survives Jackson for an entire season, the Lakers are near locks to return to the NBA finals. The player is that talented. The personality is that charming. But Rider’s past is that blurry.

“I look at it like this,” Rider said. “I’m the new guy on the team. Yeah, I have the talent. Yeah, I could step right in. But there’s other guys who have been here. There’s other guys who were on that championship team, guys who have been on other championship teams, who play my position too. So, rather than just automatically throwing me in, you’ve got to earn your keep around here. I respect that. I think that’s fair. I think guys have respect for a coach if they do something like that. We’re all human here.”

Rider has rattled around in the triangle offense for the last month, searching for openings for his jump shot, for his moments to go to the basket. If anything, on the whole, he has been too selfless, too willing to forsake his aggressiveness in deference to Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Jackson’s offensive schemes.

In six exhibition games, Rider shot 34 times, only twice from three-point range. In about the same number of minutes, Devean George launched 28 shots, seven of them three-pointers.

While that plays out on the court, Rider has been calm, accommodating, and even gracious off it. If Jackson’s public criticism offended Rider, he didn’t show it.

“I saw him harder on other guys, boy,” Harper said. “I ain’t saying no names, but I saw harder.”

Jackson’s mental jabbing of Grant when they were with the Bulls was legendary in Chicago. Finally, Grant announced that he would no longer be Jackson’s “whipping boy.”

On the development of his relationship with Rider, Jackson said, “I haven’t held his feet to the fire yet, if that’s what you’re asking. But we’re testing each other’s wills out. That’s normal with any player, new players included. They want to see how much the coach is going to make them do the right thing. I think he’s performed admirably up to this point.”

Asked if he actually liked Rider, Jackson said, “Well, I know this, I like his attitude as far as a one-on-one personality, in conversation. But, on a ball court, sometimes people are different, once on that stage of competition. They get into a different mind-set, rather than being able to think and logically work in a competitive environment. Sometimes they go to the next thing, which might be driven by something else: fear, anger, something else. So, we have to work some of those things out, when we find out where all that is going to reside.”

The short answer: He’ll let you know later. The fact is, Rider’s teammates like him, like what he eventually could bring to the floor, and don’t believe Jackson has been overly critical.

“It’s [Jackson’s] thing to challenge each and every one of us,” Rick Fox said. “He’s not singling out one individual. He expects us to be responsible for our actions on and off the court. Isaiah’s no different. I’m no different. Shaq’s no different. So maybe, in light of his past history, we would tend to scrutinize that a little more, but if you could see our list of fines, Isaiah’s not the only one who’s been fined.

“I don’t think it’s a situation where Isaiah’s isolated himself or stood out excessively. What Phil decides to do and what Phil decides to comment on, that’s his coaching. I’m not one to judge that. It’s worked.”

There is agreement in their locker room that Rider could not have found a better place to start again, if indeed he is sincere. It appears there will be genuine surprise if Rider falls into old, destructive habits. It is probably true that teammates in Portland and Atlanta were surprised too.

“I know the way you have to do it,” Rider said. “You can’t go off a person’s past, my past, whether I did well or not. You gotta go off what I do now.”

The Lakers are willing to watch and wait, willing to let him play. Rider has been told he must prove himself, on the floor, in the locker room, and after he drives away every night.

They need him, sure. But he needs them more.

“J.R. will be all right,” Harper said.