Losses Aren’t Sitting Well

The Lakers reached Christmas Day with six losses, Karl Malone nearer the injured list than the starting lineup, Gary Payton pleading for less bench time and another Jim Gray interview with Kobe Bryant, which didn’t work out too well for Shaquille O’Neal last time.

In their gym in El Segundo on Wednesday morning, they thought some about the Houston Rockets, but mostly they raged against a five-game lethargy jag that has brought three losses, two narrow victories and creeping doubts about their invincibility.

Even in the final moments of a 10-game winning streak, eventually killed by losses to Dallas and Portland over 26 hours, questions surfaced about the Lakers’ ability to finish teams of lesser talent, which is everyone else. Now that they’ve added a messy game in Oakland to their previous lapses, the Lakers suddenly are less concerned with the aesthetic qualities of victory than they are with victory itself.

“What we have to work on right now is where we’re going to go from here as a basketball team,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “You’re only as good as your last successful effort. We haven’t been very good. So, we’re going to have to pick it up a little bit. Changes are going to happen according to how we play in the next couple of weeks.”

It wasn’t all that long ago when the Lakers could not run the offense, did not know what Bryant was going to do and won by 20 points or could have, had Jackson not cleared the bench with 10 minutes to play. Now, the Lakers go to Golden State, have their starting power forward and center combine for eight rebounds in 72 minutes, fall behind by 21 and make the score respectable by taking three-pointer for the last 12 minutes.

Horace Grant, an expert on the triangle offense and learning it on the fly, said months could pass before Payton and Malone are reasonably well versed in it, and that people ought to get used to it.

“Until then, hopefully, we won’t have too many more games like this,” he said, kicking through the remains of Tuesday’s nine-point loss.

Meantime, the urgency is such that Grant has considered asking for more minutes, if Jackson believed that might help. That line, however, would form behind Payton, who appears to be frustrated with something, apparently playing time.

He played 33 minutes against the Warriors and, before that, 29 minutes Sunday, when the Lakers defeated a vastly inferior Phoenix team at Staples Center by only six points. He approached Jackson before anyone got on the bus Tuesday night in Oakland, even with friends and family waiting outside the locker room.

“We were concerned a little bit last night,” Jackson said. “He went back to his hometown. I thought he came off real slow to start the ballgame. I was concerned he wasn’t going to get going.”

That being said, Jackson came away from his conversation with Payton thinking it was less about the playing time and more about the rest time.

“I don’t think he disagrees with the time he’s on the floor as much as the time he’s on the bench when he gets cold,” Jackson said. “He needs shorter bursts out there and maybe shorter rest periods to keep him more fluid. That’s always a problem with old players; it’s tough to generate [energy] when you sit on the bench for 10 or 15 minutes.”

Payton is 35. With Bryant in and out of his offense, Malone out of the lineup for at least another two games and opposing defenses again content to surround O’Neal and have the jump shooters have at it, this could be a period for Payton to take a more commanding role. The Lakers were winning when Jackson did not appear so insistent on pushing the triangle, freeing Payton to run the game. And when he sat, it was in the fourth quarter, the lead fat, the reserves finishing it out.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a tough time [for Payton],” O’Neal said. “It’s just that he’s not used to being in a rotation. And Phil is different. Takes you out, keeps you out, keeps you out, and then puts you back in. I’m sure Gary would like to play all the time. I would like to play all the time too. But, you know, you can’t question [President] Bush.

“He’s just having a hard time, I guess, with the rotations. It’s something we’re going to have to work out. ... We’ll be all right.”

Just before he left the locker room Tuesday night, he shook his head and for a moment remembered it was still December.

“I’m good,” he said, unconvincingly. “I’m just chillin’.”

That leaves them, for the moment, with the Rockets, on national television, Bryant having sat down with ABC for an interview that will air at halftime. O’Neal will TiVo it. They won’t have Malone for a second game, and already Jackson misses his fight. They won’t have momentum, that being gone in those three losses over 12 days.

“We know we have to make improvements,” Bryant said. “That’s a given. And we’re going to make them. We have to have patience.”