Lakers Trip, Fall Again

It was hot and cramped in their locker room, the Lakers losers again, and Phil Jackson held the box score.

Shaquille O’Neal spoke and then Kobe Bryant did, neither saying much, and Jackson sat in a metal folding chair, within earshot, hoping they’d finish so they could all go, just get out.

He folded the piece of paper with the word “OFFICIAL” stamped on it. Opened it, read it again. Refolded it. Finally, he let it drop among the wadded bandages and empty ice bags.

The Detroit Pistons won, 111-88, on Wednesday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and a Laker trip that was to re-establish their championship intentions had started 0-2. They lost by 17 points the night before in Chicago, where they gave up 116 points, and at the conclusion of the back-to-back blowouts, Jackson said, “I’m not so worried about the defense.”

March almost half done, the Lakers straining for something consistent after two months in which they thought they’d taken care of that, they left here without a reliable defense and with all of the familiar questions about arrogance and motivation.

“Right now, we’re regressing,” Rick Fox said, a difficult admission on a team that built the start of a dynasty moving through the regular season gathering momentum, not wasting it, particularly in the weeks before the playoffs.

They had entertained the notion of playing into the fourth seed in the Western Conference, and instead find themselves in seventh, two games ahead of Houston and Phoenix, who are tied for the final spot.

“But, 20 [games] left now?” Fox said. “Nineteen? There’s a lot to be decided.”

O’Neal had 24 points and 13 rebounds, no points and two rebounds in five fourth-quarter minutes. Bryant was one for six in the fourth quarter, scored four points in the second half, and had 21 points, only seven after the first quarter.

“Kobe took himself out,” Jackson said. “I don’t think it was the defense that did it to Kobe. He made mistakes, poor decisions shooting the ball. This was not one of Kobe’s great games, after the first quarter, which he was great in. After that, I thought we didn’t play with the kind of poise and purpose necessary.”

They had won nine in a row here and nine in a row in the series, but played with none of that confidence after the first quarter. The Pistons, among the most limited offensive teams in the league, scored 31 points in the second quarter and 37 in the fourth.

Ben Wallace took 21 rebounds, most of them hard, glaring and talking, over Lakers not as motivated. Chauncey Billups scored 33 points, including the Pistons’ first six of the fourth quarter, when he scored 14 points, and 7-foot Mehmet Okur scored a career-high 22 points in 25 minutes. In Chicago, it was Jamal Crawford who reached his career high in points.

“Too much Billups tonight,” Jackson said. “He made me want to throw up.”

The Pistons score 90.5 points a game. Two teams -- Miami and Denver -- average fewer in the 29-team NBA.

So, for the Lakers, it will be a defensive question until mid-April. A night before, they made the Bulls’ season and Eddy Curry’s career, short as it has been. Then they could not defend the Pistons, though O’Neal was more active, particularly early in the game, when he appeared determined to play himself away from a lackluster game in Chicago.

Jackson accused referee Dick Bavetta of taking O’Neal out of the game with an early offensive foul call, but the Lakers had an 11-point lead in the first quarter, a six-point lead four minutes into the second quarter and a two-point lead in the third, only to be outscored 43-20 in the final 13 minutes. “Silly mistakes,” O’Neal said.

That was it, then, the Lakers predictable and average again after taking a late-season shot at dynamic.

It is possible that after two losses in the Eastern Conference, fewer and fewer teams the rest of the way will believe the Lakers can’t be beaten?

They had won nine of 10 games before this trip and 16 of 19, so many of them at Staples Center, and then it got hard, and Bryant couldn’t save them and O’Neal was motivated for one of the two, and now they’ve lost three in a row on the road.

“It just didn’t happen for us,” Bryant said. “When we made some good defensive plays, they made some tough shots.”