L.A. Needs to Celebrate Responsibly

The Lakers have grown up, grown together, turned countless differences into a single vision, become a proud and dignified community.

Now it’s our turn.

When the final buzzer sounds on their second consecutive NBA championship--probably tonight here in Game 5 of the NBA Finals against the staggered Philadelphia 76ers--the Lakers will lob one more alley-oop pass.

All the way back to Los Angeles.

To all of us.

And what we are going to do with it?

Are we going to throw it cleanly through the net with a loud but lawful celebration befitting the nation’s most sophisticated sports fans?

Or are we going to brick it?

You know, like last year. You remember. The Lakers remember.

“Very scary,” Ron Harper said.

A few knuckleheads set fire to a couple of cars, torched a couple of newspapers boxes and burned the reputation of an entire city.

Fans cheered Shaquille O’Neal’s strength, then cowardly caused police to shut down Staples Center with players still inside.

Fans applauded Kobe Bryant’s unselfishness, then selfishly ruined it for everybody.

You remember all this talk earlier in the playoffs about championships with asterisks: Well, that June night was an asterisk, a flaming footnote that remains today.

For a month after the championship, people in town talked not about the NBA but the LAPD.

A year later, they are still talking, or at least e-mailing, judging from the one missive I received Thursday that asked whether downtown Los Angeles businesses were holding pre-looting sales.

I wrote back saying I hope Los Angeles would prove that person wrong.

But I have no idea. Do you? What will it be?

Dunk or brick? Are we a city of majesty or morons?

C’mon, people. It’s an easy question.

Cheering is not a contact sport. The wave is not flammable. A victory is supposed to make you, I don’t know, happy?

People who are happy generally do not loot furniture stores.

If you do insist on acting like an idiot, at least have the decency to take off that Shaq jersey because he wants no part of you.

“If we win, I urge you, do not tear the city up,” he said Thursday, sending a message to the folks back home. “You do not need to celebrate with violence. You can celebrate in other ways.

“Keep our city clean, if you know what I mean.”

Earlier, when asked about last year, O’Neal looked more befuddled than at any time during his battle with Dikembe Mutombo.

“I’ve never really understood why it happened like that, when a city wins a championship, why they do what they do,” he said. “You know, it’s just something you can’t explain.”

None of the Lakers really understands why their moment was ruined last season, although Harper has a theory.

“It’s simple,” he said. “You do not show a basketball game on a big-screen TV on a sidewalk in front of a gym. You just do not do that.”

The folks at Staples Center, who were trying to be good citizens, have learned. This year, the TV is turned off, along with everything else.

If you don’t have a ticket, you won’t be able to hang out anywhere near the arena during either today’s scoreboard telecast inside, or next week’s potential Games 6 and 7.

Streets will be closed. Curtains on the adjoining restaurant will be closed so TVs are not visible. The arena monitors that can be seen through windows from the street will be turned to a different channel.

The NBA and the Lakers have combined to produce public service announcements urging a safe celebration. You’ve probably seen them on TV, and they will also be shown in the arena.

But the bottom line, Los Angeles, is us.

That alley-oop pass is going to us, and only us.

“We and the police are going to do all we can, but fans play the biggest part,” said Tim Leiweke, Staples Center president. “If people say they will not tolerate stupidity, if people say they will not put up with it, then it can work.”

He’s right. Let’s turn that mob mentality in another direction.

Somebody in your section causing trouble? You and your buddies turn them in.

Somebody across the street messing with a window as you’re leaving the game? Instead of standing there and laughing, your group could turn them in.

You good fans are not alone here. You good fans outnumber the bad ones by 500 to one. There is strength in numbers. Use that strength.

There were seven arrests Wednesday after the Staples Center telecast of Game 4, but most were for underage drinking.

Let’s act like adults and think how we want to be remembered.

As a city as cool as its two-time NBA champions? Or as a city as cliched as Denver, where their teams seemingly cannot win a game without something getting lit.

There is some concern that, if the Lakers win here tonight, the real violence could occur outside the First Union Center, where inside there have already been numerous fights.

The Lakers hope these Philly people will also be smart. But they are more concerned about returning to a Southern California that is celebrating, not smoldering.

“I’m hoping that last year was because it had been such a long time since we had won, and maybe some of that was building up,” Rick Fox said. “I’m hoping this year, they can enjoy it and be wiser about it.”

For two months the Lakers have brought Los Angeles much joy by doing precisely that--behaving smartly, learning from their experiences, not making the same mistakes twice.

It’s our turn.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.