Sweep Sensation

By TIM BROWN

May 28, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Regular-season underachievers turned playoff juggernauts, the Lakers began their true title defense Sunday evening, the moment they walked out of the Western Conference finals and into the NBA finals, when General Manager Mitch Kupchak turned and handed the trophy to Kobe Bryant. He hoisted it overhead and smiled, then gave it away, almost without thought.

They dispatched the San Antonio Spurs, 111-82, at Staples Center, pushing playoff perfection through a third series, an 11th game, matching the best postseason start in league history. That’s Portland in three, Sacramento in four and the Spurs in four, three 50-game winners out without a misstep for the Lakers, who swept the Spurs by an average of 22.3 points a game, the largest differential ever in a conference finals.

The Lakers play the winner of the Milwaukee-Philadelphia Eastern Conference finals, beginning Sunday or June 6, at Staples Center. The vision of the coming series, finally, is what dragged the Lakers through six pouting, disharmonious months, ultimately delivering them here, heads shaking too, with 19 consecutive wins overall.

And that’s fine, of course, but apparently worth no more than a celebratory clenched fist, and a day off from practice.

“We’re not happy with what we accomplished so far,” Laker guard Brian Shaw said. “We still have some work ahead of us. I was very happy to see after the game tonight that everybody had that down-to-business game face on. Nobody celebrated and acted like we won a championship, because we haven’t. We won the Western Conference, but now we still have some work, and that’s the attitude this team has taken on in the last month-and-a-half or so.”

Eight weeks to the day since the Lakers’ last loss, and before a crowd delirious over them for it, Laker guard Derek Fisher made six of seven three-point shots and led all scorers with a career-high 28 points. He is the first Laker other than Shaquille O’Neal or Bryant to lead the team in scoring since Dec. 15, and the second to do it all year.

Fisher made 11 of 13 field-goal attempts, including all three threes in the fourth quarter, when the Lakers buried the memory of a four-game sweep at the hands of the Spurs two seasons ago. The Spurs won the 1999 title, then lost it without an injured Tim Duncan last year, in the Lakers’ championship season. Billed, then, as the rubber series between Western titans, Bryant, O’Neal and the Super Friends, as the 10 other Lakers have become known, took it with unnatural ease.

“We do a very good job of staying in the moment and taking it game to game, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do,” Bryant said. “We just want to win a championship, no matter how we get there, no matter what it takes.”

O’Neal had 26 points and 10 rebounds and Bryant had 24 points and 11 assists. Just as they did in Game 3, the Lakers went out big, 33-23 after one quarter and 64-41 after two, stole away any ideas the Spurs had of regaining their dignity after Friday’s 39-point defeat, and coasted into the finals. They shot 59.1% in the first half, their best shooting half of the postseason.

“We are playing great team ball,” O’Neal said.

Bryant averaged 33.3 points on 51.4% shooting in the series. Fisher made 15 of 20 threes in the series. And the Spurs, the West’s top-seeded team after winning 58 regular-season games, shot 39.2% from the floor, 22.0% from the three-point arc while being overrun in four games.

“They got us good,” Spur Coach Gregg Popovich said, almost bemused.

The 1989 Lakers were the last team to start the playoffs with 11 consecutive wins. No team has run the playoffs. Popovich compared this Laker team with the Lakers and Boston Celtics of a generation ago, and Laker Coach Phil Jackson would not disagree.

“To win a series like this is a remarkable feat,” Jackson said.

The enduring image of the series will be O’Neal, leading the break, eyes wide, grin at the corners of his mouth, Bryant on his right and Rick Fox on his left.

In the second quarter, O’Neal gathered the ball beneath the Spurs’ basket and charged up the middle of the floor, on the dribble, over midcourt. At the three-point line he fed Bryant a no-look pass, his eyes playfully set on Fox, the look-away from a 350-pound point guard.

As the crowd roared at the sight of Shaq as Magic, O’Neal took two more large steps, accepted the return pass from Bryant and threw down a right-handed dunk. Laker bench players leaped off their chairs, and David Robinson wearily stuck the tips of his left fingers to his right palm for a timeout.

“There were fantastic,” Robinson said. “They had an answer for everything. They did a great job as a team and made a lot of great shots. I give them a lot of credit, they totally dismantled us.”

The basket pushed the Laker lead to 21 points and the Spur spirit to zero. Bryant dominated the series with his all-around play. Halfway through it, O’Neal even called him the best player in the league, and then the Lakers got even better.

“Every time we were expecting a letdown, we actually came back and turned it up more,” Bryant said. “It felt good because a lot of people expected this to be a long series, a tough series. Some people actually expected us to lose.”

Imagine.

“We had something to prove to ourselves, in terms of what we’re capable of doing,” Fisher said. “It only starts from here, now.”

For expanded coverage of the Laker-Spur series, including photo galleries and postgame interviews, please visit the Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/nbaplayoffs.

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THE STREAK

Lakers’ 19-game winning streak (last 11 games are in playoffs):

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Date Opponent Score April 3 at Utah 96-88 April 5 at Chicago 100-88 April 6 at Boston 100-96 April 8 at Minnesota 104-99 April 10 Phoenix 106-80 April 12 Minnesota 119-102 April 15 Portland 105-100 April 17 Denver 108-91 April 22 Portland 106-93 April 26 Portland 106-88 April 29 at Portland 99-86 May 6 Sacramento 108-105 May 8 Sacramento 96-90 May 11 at Sacramento 103-81 May 13 at Sacramento 19-113 May 19 at San Antonio 104-90 May 21 at San Antonio 88-81 May 25 San Antonio 111-72 May 27 San Antonio 111-82

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UP NEXT

If the Eastern Conference finals end by Wednesday, the NBA finals will begin Sunday at Staples Center. If the Eastern Conference finals end after Wednesday, then the NBA finals will begin June 6 at Staples Center.

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BY THE NUMBERS

22.3: Lakers’ average margin of victory in Western Conference finals.

20: Times the Lakers have reached the NBA finals in the 41 years the franchise has been in L.A.

19: Consecutive games won by Lakers--the second-longest winning streak in L.A. franchise history, behind the 33 won by 1971-72 team. The 1999-2000 team also won 19 in a row.

12: Consecutive games won by Lakers in the playoffs, including last year. The Lakers won 13 playoff games in a row in 1988 and 1989.

10: Times since moving to L.A. the Lakers have swept an opponent in the playoffs.

.220: Three-point shooting percentage by the Spurs in this year’s Western Conference finals. The Lakers had the same percentage when they were swept by the Spurs in 1999 conference semifinals.

28: Career-high points for Derek Fisher in Game 4.

11: Assists by Kobe Bryant in Game 4.

0: Times the Spurs led in conference final games in L.A.

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Sweeping Changes

Comparing key statistics from the Lakers’ playoff series sweep of San Antonio this year to the Spurs’ sweep of Lakers in 1999:

LAKERS

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1999 2001 Pts 88.8 103.5 FG% .428 .471 FT% .622 .617 Reb. 40.2 51.8 3pt% .220 .444

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SPURS

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