Home Team Confidence on the Rise

Criticized by local fans and at least one teammate for admitting his confidence had been “shaken,” the Kings’ Scot Pollard said he’s feeling a lot better about their chances in Game 3.

“It’s going to be fun,” Pollard said. “Different environment. Gives us a chance to play our type of game. . . . The crowd will be behind us.

“I have no reservations about the fact that our intensity will be where it needs to be, finally, in this series. From top to bottom, I think everybody on the team will finally be playing hard, and I think we’ll be playing our type of basketball. We’ll be up and down and we’ll be in their face, we’ll be running around and running by ‘em and playing our loose kind of game that’s going to help us win this series. . . .

“That’s how good I think we are. We haven’t played very intense for 48 minutes and we haven’t played very well. We’ve played decent, but not our best. We’re about 20 points below our average as a team, as far as scoring. Yet we still had a chance to win both those games. . . .

“I’ve been looking at it from the point of view: If we play our style of game, we win. They’ll score in the 80s, we’ll score in the hundreds.”

Pollard made his “shaken” comment after Game 2.

Said Chris Webber: “I can’t believe he said that. If his confidence is shaken, I’ll check Shaq [O’Neal].”

A year ago, the Kings, trailing the Lakers 2-0 in a best-of-five series, won Games 3 and 4 here, with Webber sagging off A.C. Green to double-team O’Neal.

But in Game 5 in Staples Center, Phil Jackson repositioned Green away from O’Neal. When Webber tried to halve the distance, he was called for illegal defense on the Lakers’ first two possessions.

“Basically, they changed the way they put people on the floor and that’s what they’re doing this series,” King Coach Rick Adelman said.

“Horace Grant is not around [O’Neal] and so the only way to get Chris over there is send him on the double-team, which opens up a cut to the basket and a lot of things.”

Despite Jackson’s suggestions to the contrary, Adelman insists the Kings did double-team O’Neal in Game 2, but still not fast enough or hard enough.

“Last game, we got to him--but we got to him with no idea of taking it out of his hands,” Adelman said.

“We were letting him make his move anyway. We’ve got to get to him, being aggressive, so he feels you’re going after the ball. We haven’t been the aggressors in that area and if it doesn’t happen, the guy’s going to dominate us.”

Adelman, on the difference in his team this spring, as opposed to last spring: “Last year, they hammered us pretty good in the first two games and we had to prove we could play with them, step on the court and play with them.

“Even though they beat us down there [this week], it was by three and six points and Shaq had dominant games. There’s no doubt in my mind we can play with ‘em. . . . Last year I was wondering, ‘Are we going to respond?’ ”