Somebody Should Remind the Spurs This Is a Classic

They don’t make classics the way they used to, either.

After two games of that battle of the Western Conference titans that everyone had been waiting for, etc., we’re missing one titan. The Lakers have been all they were supposed to be but the San Antonio Spurs look like a bug splattered on their windshield. As for Spur fans holding tickets for Game 5 here, they might want to make contingency plans.

The Lakers haven’t lost since April 1 and now are sure they’re bulletproof.

“So we have ‘em right where we want ‘em,” said Sean Elliott between games, laughing. “If we lose the next one, we’ll really have ‘em where we want ‘em.”

Welcome to your new predicament.

The Spurs, on the other hand, are more like Fearless Fosdick in the “Li’l Abner” comics, shot so full of holes, there’s daylight showing through.

In Game 1, the Lakers dominated them. In Game 2, they got the Spurs’ best game . . . and still won.

Now the series shifts to Los Angeles. For the Spurs, the good news is, it isn’t over yet. Unfortunately, that’s the only good news available.

“I mean, it’s a terrible position to be in,” said David Robinson, “but there’s a lot of teams on vacation right now too, so . . . I mean, there’s still a lot of life. I mean, we still got a lot of fight in us.”

It was a rough 48 hours after Game 1 for the Spurs, who went into it thinking the teams were equal and came out wondering if they could compete.

The next day was devoted to convincing themselves it had resulted from their slovenly play. Coach Gregg Popovich, asked, if he had found things he could change, said, laughing, “God, I hope so!.”

Everyone else was busy reevaluating, like ESPN’s Jack Ramsay, who had predicted this series would be one of the classics.

“It still might, yet . . . in another dimension,” said Ramsay, laughing. “That was stunning.”

Game 2 was more what people expected. The Spurs were desperate. Tim Duncan was great, making 12 of 18 shots in the first half, scoring 25 points. They knocked the Lakers back on their heels and took a 14-point lead.

Then the Lakers just turned it around on them and won again, taking Duncan away in the second half with some un-Phil-Jackson-like double-teaming.

Duncan got off only eight shots in the second half, including a three-point basket he banked in in the closing seconds after the game was lost.

Now the Spurs would throw it to Duncan, guarded most of the time by Robert Horry. Another Laker would double. Duncan would give it up and they’d pass the ball until they found an open man who would then throw up a cinder block.

“Sometimes, it’s a simple game,” Popovich said. “Comes down to putting the ball in the hole enough times.

“I thought we played our . . . off. I was really proud of their effort and their execution. I thought they did a great job on Shaq [O’Neal] and Kobe [Bryant]. The guys, everything we asked them to do, I thought the effort was outstanding. Hit the boards well, transition, everything about it, I was really proud of--and just could not get a shot to fall.”

Well, that’s a bad one to leave out.

The Spurs know about this. They lived a dream like this two springs ago, in the famous “asterisk season,” when they finished the season on a 31-5 run, then went 15-2 in the playoffs en route to their title.

Along the way, they rubbed out the Lakers, 4-0, in another eagerly-awaited series that ran a little short.

“You start playing at another level,” said Elliott, a member of that team. “You sit back and you don’t ever realize you could have gotten to that level. In ‘99, we were just sharp . . .

“I said the first two series [this postseason] that this team has the potential to be better than that ’99 team but we haven’t been as sharp in the playoffs. We were in Minnesota for Game 3 [leading the series, 2-0] and in Dallas for Game 4 [leading, 3-0] and we laid eggs in those games, and we wouldn’t have done that in ’99.”

In ‘99, the Spurs would win their games at home to open the series, even if someone like Elliott had to make a last-second three-pointer against Portland in the Western Conference finals, on his tip-toes with his heels above the out-of-bounds line.

Then they’d go on the road and someone like Jaren Jackson would start raining three-pointers on the opponent and next thing you knew, the series was over.

Jackson is on the injured list this spring, with a bad headache or something.

Some years you’re the whipped cream pie. Some years you’re the face.