Going Gets Tough, Losses Get Tougher

Finals rematch?

OK, which one of these teams is the defending champion?

An hour-and-a-half before the game starts, the Lakers begin running down their list of who’s available, semi-available or whatever.

Ron Harper just went on the injured list.

Coach Phil Jackson says he’d use Robert Horry more but he “looks like he’s running around on eggshells out there, he’s really gimpy.”

Rick Fox’s back is so sore, he was a game-time decision in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Horace Grant has Band-Aids bracketing his cheeks, after stopping drives by Stephon Marbury and Baron Davis with his face.

Then there’s Isaiah Rider. Asked what he expects of Rider, Jackson notes, “I can’t expect anything out of Isaiah, but I hope he performs well . . . Expectations, responsibilities, those are terms and words that mean nothing to him.”

Good scouting report, Phil.

Rider starts but plays only the first nine minutes in the first half (scoring seven points). He lasts only 2:37 of the third period before Jackson sends Tyronn Lue in for him.

“That’s . . . ,” says Rider, coming to the bench. “That’s some . . . “

He then marches off, presumably to the dressing room. Or maybe the airport, who knows?

He returns 15 minutes later. The Lakers say his stomach was upset by too much sports drink. In Portland, where he left the bench more than once, they generally called it upset stomachs too. Once when he was a Trail Blazer, Rider left the bench and motioned for his girlfriend, sitting in the stands, to meet him in the hallway outside the dressing room.

Jackson, asked afterward if he’s OK with Rider’s leaving, says: “I have to be right now.”

No, your defending champion Lakers haven’t looked as if they were defending anything recently. Sunday they were OK until the fourth quarter when they let the Pacers score on every possession but two, 36 points, 110 altogether for a team that had only been over 100 seven times all season. That was one more point than the Lakers scored and ruined their whole day.

For the gutty little Pacers, who are all that’s left of last spring’s Eastern Conference champions, this was an unexpected thrill. They started the day six games under .500. They were in against Shaquille (The Greater) O’Neal, who averaged 38 against them last spring, and since then they had lost their starting center, Rik Smits.

All the Pacers had was Zan Tabak, Jermaine (the Lesser) O’Neal and 39-year-old Sam Perkins, so that’s who got the job.

“Ain’t nobody else,” Perkins said afterward. “Me and Tabak make up him, put together. Can’t play six so it’s tough. I’m getting paid to do it, that’s the key.”

Five Pacers made do.

Reggie Miller (remember him?) scored 18 points in the fourth quarter, 23 in the second half and 33 altogether.

Reggie is 35 and says he can’t do the things he once did but he did them just the same, shooting it out with Kobe Bryant in crunch time, scoring seven points in the final 2:03 to tie the score once and put the Pacers ahead twice after the Lakers had taken the lead.

“You’re going against the champs,” Miller said. “We had to do something. They played pretty well for three-and-a-half quarters but we found a way to hang around and stick around in the game. Some of our young pups kinda grew up tonight . . .

“It’s always good to beat a top-notch team. In the West, they can’t afford losses like this. It’s going to sting a little bit, if you look at the big picture down the road for them, if they’re trying to get home-court advantage.

“And for us, this win might help us move up. Right now, I believe we’re in ninth, a game or two behind Boston . . . “

Actually, the Pacers are a half-game behind the Celtics in the race for No. 8. For most of the ‘90s and the beginning of the ‘00s, Indiana competed for titles, but, despite appearances Sunday, it isn’t like that here anymore.

“It’s been tough,” Miller said. “Only point being, because I have the bull’s-eye on my back every time because of what I said, and the teams I’ve been accompanied by in the ‘90s.

“We’ve talked a lot of mess and a lot of junk to a lot of teams and now I don’t have a lot of those same guys with me who had my back for so many years.”

The guys he had were good enough Sunday but they didn’t beat the best of the West. Just the Lakers.

Forget home-court advantage. Right now, the Lakers are just trying to get home.