Call It What You Like, New Era Is Hard to Beat

Staples Center is no longer a gym, it’s a delivery room, chaotic and chin-dropping and wonderful.

The Lakers are no longer merely winning, they are giving birth, a new era bursting out all howling and red-faced and beautiful.

From Showtime to, well, any ideas for a name?

Something that feels like a fallaway three-pointer, but sounds like a scrambling rebound. Something that, when you roll it off your tongue in 20 years for your grandchildren, still rings like a triangle.

We have only two weeks to figure it out. Because as sure as a Kobe Bryant smirk, it’s coming, and there’s probably nothing anyone in Milwaukee or Philadelphia can do about it.

Before a city with plate-sized eyes and reddened palms, this new era began emerging Sunday in the form of a 111-82 victory over the San Antonio Spurs, giving the Lakers a four-game sweep in the Western Conference finals.

Enough about the 11-game playoff streak, the 19-game winning streak, the chance to make history with a 15-0 postseason.

This new era is about how, in the third quarter, Jack Nicholson brushed off his lapels and chanted, “Sweep, sweep.”

When is the last time anybody has seen this town’s favorite courtside curmudgeon do anything other than examine the Laker girls with his binoculars?

Yep. That last time was Showtime.

This new era is about how, with four minutes remaining in the game, the 18,997 fans put down their cell phones and hip aura and sang the corniest song in the English language.

Yep. “Nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah, hey-hey-hey . . .”

This new era is about how, after writhing through most of last year’s postseason, the town is dancing through this one, and the players are dancing with them.

“You can see it in their eyes, and see it in their body language,” the Spurs’ Antonio Daniels said. “They don’t feel they can be beat.”

Not only the players, but everybody, and when is the last time that happened?

You don’t watch the Laker girls so much anymore. You barely notice the celebrities. The best dancers are in gold uniforms. The biggest stars are the ones with the basketball. And when is the last time that has happened?

Late Sunday afternoon the cameras found, sitting in a luxury box, a man who was so nervous during last year’s playoffs that during games he sat in movie theaters and drove the freeways.

Welcome to the fourth quarter, Jerry West.

With 2:18 remaining, a new T-shirt appeared on the scoreboard as Lawrence Tanter boomed, “Ladies and gentlemen, Western Conference championship merchandise is now on sale.”

Remember when they wouldn’t even play Randy Newman until the final seconds?

“It’s rather scary,” said Rick Fox, implying the obvious question.

The Lakers aren’t this good, right?

Nobody is this good.

A basketball player with a butt the size of a Memorial Day cooler does not run the length of the court and throw a no-look pass . . . then catch a return pass and dunk.

Basketball players barely old enough to drink do not spin through four defenders, make a layup, then retain the presence of mind to stare down a referee for not calling a foul.

Derek Fisher does not survive 418 playoff minutes with 38 assists and six turnovers.

The Lakers are not better than basketball’s best regular-season team by four consecutive wins by an average of 22.3 points.

Nobody is this good.

Are they?

The Spurs answered in long looks and slow walks and complete surrender by the time Fisher pump-faked Tim Duncan and drove between him and David Robinson for a flying, flopping layup.

It was midway through the second quarter. The Lakers led by 19. The game and series were over.

To think that when it began a week ago, folks were saying it might be one of the best battles in basketball history.

That was back when those same folks assumed the Spurs were about heart, and the Lakers were about Hollywood.

Before it became obvious that the Spurs were about neither, and the Lakers are about both.

Said Spur veteran Sean Elliott: “They are the best team I’ve ever seen in a playoff situation.”

Added Coach Gregg Popovich: “You’ve got to think back to when Showtime was here before.”

Now, finally, we have something new to think about it. Two weeks to name it. Four wins from making it official. The comparisons are obvious. Full names not necessary.

From Kareem to Shaq. From Magic to Kobe. From Worthy and Coop to Fish and Fox.

More than a decade overdue, but right on time.

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