Jackson Knew How (and When) to Ride Lakers

The horses are on their way to the gate at the Belmont Stakes as the fingers come down on the keyboard, and it’s hard not to think of the Lakers.

The thoroughbreds of the NBA are galloping now, the way horses do when they know they’re just about to reach the finish line. The Lakers have won four consecutive games at the most important time of the season, including the first two games of the NBA Finals. Shaquille O’Neal is dominating again, the way Secretariat did almost three decades ago.

And they have a jockey who knows exactly when to go to the whip.

I think back to a conversation with Phil Jackson in January, in Minneapolis, when the Lakers were plodding their way through the regular season.

“There’s a time to squeeze them and demand their full attention,” Jackson said after a morning shoot-around. “But the pressure of the season and the intensity of playing so many games, a lot of times it’s just best to let them have the rein a little bit and go with it.”

So Jackson let the regular season slip into a pattern of ups and downs. The Lakers won at some of the most difficult venues in the league, including Sacramento, San Antonio and Dallas, and lost at home to such NBA lowlifes as the Denver Nuggets, Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat.

Jackson never panicked, never sent them back to boot camp. He was betting on June, not January.

“We got more days off than we ever did,” forward Rick Fox said after the Lakers’ 106-83 victory in Game 2 of the Finals. “We did a lot of light stuff. We didn’t watch a whole lot of film during the season. We didn’t do a lot of stuff. We understood why, but throughout the 82-game season we were looking a little sloppy at times, a little disjointed.”

Shaquille O’Neal’s toe problems bounced him in and out of the lineup, and more out than in for practices. Without the focal point of their offense on the court every day, the Lakers couldn’t find a rhythm in their triangle pattern.

That made such players as Fox and Derek Fisher look worse, because they’re so dependent on the offense running well to get them good shots.

O’Neal was out of shape and hobbling. Fisher was coming back from foot surgery. Robert Horry is always fragile.

“[Jackson] knows he can’t have these guys go out, work them to death, win 67 games and fall apart,” Fox said. “We had a great desire to win 70 games. But if we would have made that push, we would have been no good right now.”

So the Lakers played just well enough to win 58 games. Their play within games during this postseason has been more of the same: enough dominant runs or clutch play in the fourth quarter to make up for long stretches of ineffectiveness.

It’s enough to get the Lakers within sniffing distance of their third consecutive championship. It’s enough to make you think Jackson really does know what he’s doing.

At times this has looked like Jackson’s worst performance yet. The Lakers, unquestionably, underachieved during the regular season. That’s why they had to play Game 7 in Sacramento.

Now the coach stands two victories away from surpassing Pat Riley’s record of 155 career playoff victories and matching Red Auerbach’s record of nine championships.

And the closer he gets, the more he returns to his natural state: needling rivals. The other day, in reference to the 1999 season, he used the a-word that made him so hated in San Antonio: “You know, the asterisk season.”

Referring to all of the whining coming out of Sacramento after the Western Conference finals, Jackson said, “I do feel sorry for Sacramento. It’s tough to be good losers. It is. It’s not easy to do.”

It’s killing Sacramento Coach Rick Adelman, who really loathes Jackson, that he lost to him. Adelman had the coaching edge in the first six games of the series, just as the Kings played better basketball than the Lakers in those games.

Having the best talent doesn’t ensure you always win. Adelman knows that first-hand.

Adelman’s inability to get the most out of his Portland Trail Blazers in the early 1990s helped change the course of NBA history. Portland should have beaten the Lakers in the 1991 Western Conference finals. And if they had, they had the combination of Finals experience and athleticism to beat the Chicago Bulls. And who knows if the Bulls would have had the breakthrough that led them to six championships in eight years and created the aura of Phil Jackson?

Now he’s at the point where success could hasten the end of the Jackson era. If he wins championship No. 9 this year, it puts him in strong position to break Auerbach’s record within the final two years of his contract.

His recent comments indicate how much he wants to beat Auerbach, in part to avenge the cigar-smoked losses Jackson’s old Knick coach, Red Holzman, suffered at the hands of the Celtics.

I think the quest for No. 10 is the only thing that could bring Jackson back after his contract expires. Everything else he has said indicates he won’t coach a day longer. The knee, back and hips hurt so much in October that he considered calling it quits early.

He’s feeling better. The Lakers are feeling better. The finish line of the three-peat is in sight. Just because War Emblem lost Saturday, it doesn’t mean we won’t see a triple crown winner.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.