Just Reaching .500 Seems Too Much to Ask of Them

Et tu, Nets?

The Lakers’ relentless drive toward the .500 mark, interrupted unexpectedly by the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, hit another bump Friday when a New Jersey Net team that should have been out on its feet, bopped them between the eyes anew.

The Lakers have lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers and to the Miami Heat this season. Now they’ve been swept back by the Nets, whom they swept so memorably last spring.

The Nets had lost three games in a row, on this trip, were playing their fourth in five nights, didn’t have Dikembe Mutombo, Rodney Rogers and Lucious Harris, and it still didn’t matter.

Before the game, Coach Byron Scott was wondering out loud if the challenge of going against Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant would wake his team up, but he wasn’t making any guarantees.

“Should be enough,” Scott said, “but again, we’re not talking about the ‘80s. This is a different breed so I don’t know....

“We got a couple big guys out, and I think that is a factor. [Mutombo] is somebody we were counting on to neutralize a lot of the bigger guys in the West.... [Losing] Rodney Rogers is hurting us right now.

“We’re thin right now, but with that, we should also be quicker, we should be a little more tenacious on the defensive end. We need to get after people. That’s the only way you can make up for not having the size we don’t have right now, is by really making a concerted effort on the defensive end to just get after people and if you lose, at least you lose in a way where you’re giving everything you’ve got.

“Unlike the way we played the last game, where I thought we played maybe 10 minutes of good, solid, hard basketball where we got after them.”

So the Nets found out what they have.

Unfortunately, so did the Lakers. Right now, they look like a bored team that toys with its food for three quarters and then turns earnest at the end, when it’s often too late.

The Lakers are now back to four games under .500 and, with their next two games at Phoenix and Sacramento, you’d have to say they just blew their latest schedule opportunity.

The Nets started this trip in Utah, where they led by two points before Karl Malone tied it with an offensive rebound with 0.6 seconds left, and the Jazz went on to win in overtime.

The Nets went to Sacramento, where few good things happen for visitors these days and none did for them.

Then it was over to Golden State, where they gave up another 105 points and lost another game.

“You start thinking the ball’s not bouncing your way, things aren’t going your way,” Scott said before the game. “So you have a tough loss like that [at Utah] and then you go to Sacramento and get down early. You’re fighting all game long to climb up that hill and you never seem to get over the top.

“Then we go to Golden State and play a team we probably should beat, that just came off a very big win over the Lakers, so you know their adrenalin was flowing. They’re looking again to measure themselves and they played a terrific game, and now I don’t think it’s a must-win situation, but we’re at a point where a sense of urgency should come into play....

“We’re a long way ways from where we were last year. As dominant as they [Lakers] were last year, I think they’re getting closer to being that team again.

“They’re going towards that. We’re going in a reverse motion. We’re going way away from that.”

Of course, Scott was a Laker once, in Showtime, when the expectations were pretty much what they are today and weren’t always met. Still, none of Scott’s teams were under .500 at the All-Star break, as this one will be, unless it wins its next four, all on the road.

“Everybody has their different expectations of their team,” Scott said, “and I think here, obviously, in Los Angeles, they expect perfection, they expect excellence, they expect championships. So for them to be at the halfway point and they’re under .500 is probably unheard of, and it’s unthinkable around here.

“So people start to panic. It’s like with us, our main focus right now is to stay poised and stay together as a team. Because you’re going to go through some ups and downs.”

The Nets are back up, for the moment. The Lakers are still down and moldering.