It Seemed the Fourth Was Never With Them

A long and good reign ended Thursday, slowly, chillingly, Staples Center drying up as Derek Fisher’s eyes filled.

The reign ended with a boom that wasn’t thunder, but the felling of a giant.

The reign ended with flashes that weren’t lightning, but the San Antonio Spurs.

What began nearly three years ago with confetti ended with a championship run in shreds, the Lakers falling to the Spurs and their own mortality, bringing down a town’s collective sports psyche with them.

The final score, in this clinching Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals, was Spurs 110, Lakers 82.

A final sight was of a mourning fan trying to cover up the deficit by hanging a Laker shroud over one of the end-zone scoreboards.

A final chant came from the upper deck, typifying the pervading desperation.

“We want Sla-va, we want Sla-va.”

The final walk from the court was as varied as the emotions that surrounded it.

Phil Jackson was smiling and applauding the remaining fans.

Shaquille O’Neal was scowling.

Fisher was crying.

Kobe Bryant never looked up.

“I think right now, we’re all just in a state of shock,” Brian Shaw said.

After three consecutive championships, this means everybody.

The players now have an extra month of vacation.

“I have no idea what we’ll do,” Shaw said.

The fans now have an extra month to follow, I don’t know, the Mighty Ducks?

And beginning next year, public address announcer Lawrence Tanter’s pregame introductions will include nine fewer syllables.

Back-to-back-to-back World Champion ...

Not anymore.

Is it any wonder Fisher spent the final minutes weeping?

“Whoever wins this championship will get to feel what we have felt for three years, and they better enjoy it,” he said. “Because it doesn’t last forever.”

The Lakers showed up Thursday like they already knew this, plodding through the early parts of the game with none of the emotion that marked their previous four elimination bouts under Phil Jackson, all victories.

They looked weary. They looked lost. They looked old.

It was as if Robert Horry’s rattled-out three-point shot at the buzzer in Tuesday’s loss had convinced them that the magic had ended.

It was as if Devean George suddenly realized he didn’t want to be playing on a badly sprained ankle, and the rest of the players realized how badly they missed Rick Fox.

It was as if the Lakers knew something the rest of us didn’t know, or wouldn’t believe.

Like, it was over.

Maybe not Thursday. Maybe it would have ended Saturday in Game 7. But they knew they didn’t have the players or the strength to finish this fourth lap.

“Everything we’ve been through, I think it all just caught up to us,” Shaw said.

All this, and they still trailed by only nine points at the start of the fourth quarter. And some thought, what is nine points to a team that nearly erased a 25-point deficit just two days ago?

In this game, everything.

The Spurs scored on seven of their first eight fourth-quarter possessions against a defense that chased as if wearing ankle weights. The Laker offense lost all patience and touch.

A Spur team that couldn’t close games shut the fourth-quarter door to the sound of 32-13, and that was that.

“We just didn’t have it. So many things were bad, it was shocking,” said Horry, the three-point hero who ended the series with zero three-point baskets in 18 attempts.

It was so shocking to the 18,997 fans, they didn’t know whether to boo or cheer. So in a game that felt as bloody and pained as the last round of a one-sided fight, they did both.

They booed for scattered minutes at the Lakers’ inability to put up a fight. Then, in the end, as the prominent Lakers sat helplessly on the bench, they stood and cheered the three seasons of fight that preceded this.

The players heard.

“To play with such great players on such great teams ... this has been a gift,” Fisher said.

A gift for them, for the town, and for the NBA, whose Finals ratings just dropped like a Tim Duncan bank shot.

Not that the Spurs don’t deserve their props. They were clearly the better team. Duncan is clearly the league’s MVP after dominating every Laker who touched him. Their young guards are clearly growing up.

“Watching them tonight, it was like they did what we normally do,” Shaw said.

But in the end, the Lakers clearly beat themselves.

They grew old. But out of loyalty, they did nothing about it.

“We felt that after winning three straight championships, this core group of players earned a right to win a fourth,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said recently.

They grew a little selfish, with Shaquille O’Neal refusing to undergo off-season toe surgery until September, severely affecting the start of the season.

“Looking back on that, yeah, it’s a factor,” said Shaw earlier this season.

They lost home-court advantage during the regular season. They lost Fox in the first round of the playoffs. They lost George in the series opener against San Antonio.

In the end, they tried to win with O’Neal and Bryant and Fisher and a couple of guys named Pargo, and it just wasn’t enough.

Afterward, when asked for a message for the fans, O’Neal said, “We thank you for your support. And we apologize.”

On the night when a city and its basketball team were rudely awakened from a dream, several truths were revealed in the harsh light.

The Lakers need to get stronger at power forward. They need to get quicker at point guard. They need to get deeper and smarter and more unselfish.

But, no, no, no.

They do not need to apologize.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.