Less Toil, and More Trouble

Near the end of a season in which they’ve often toiled in the soft places between promise and discouragement, the Lakers played to the end of their 11-game winning streak Sunday afternoon.

As the San Antonio Spurs packed up and moved on, having finished them last season and recast the uncertainty into this one, the Lakers lamented the return of a style and attitude they believed made them ordinary for so many months, despite their enormous talent.

Carried from mid-March to early April by something most of them recognized as almost-full health and dedication to the system Phil Jackson asks of them, the Lakers played without their recent authority and lost to the Spurs, 95-89, at Staples Center.

As a result and for the time being, the Western Conference is not necessarily the Lakers’ to decide, a reality brought by Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili only 11 days from the conclusion of the regular season.

The Sacramento Kings, Sunday winners in Houston, are 53-23 and lead the conference and Pacific Division. The Lakers, who have five games remaining, including one in Sacramento, and the Minnesota Timberwolves each have 24 losses. The Spurs have 25.

“Just one of those days for us,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “I’ll take 11 out of 12 anytime. We just have to get back on track.”

In the final 2 1/2 minutes, from four points ahead, Duncan made an open jumper, Parker made an open three-pointer and Duncan made two free throws, while the Lakers went their final three possessions without a point. Parker scored 29 points, nine in the fourth quarter, and Duncan had 18 points and 13 rebounds.

“I never felt that we had the kind of energy in the game that I like to have,” Jackson said. “I felt like the direction and the tempo of the game was all Spur ball. The high screen-and-roll, bouncing our guys around off picks, those little things bothered us.”

Kobe Bryant scored 28 points, but didn’t exactly get carried off the floor, and afterward his teammates generally talked around the subject of his 26 shots (he made nine) and their influence on the loss, only the sixth for the Lakers at home.

The rest of the Lakers were at times minimally involved, O’Neal because of first-half foul trouble, Karl Malone and Gary Payton because sometimes, when there are signs of trouble, Bryant becomes quite forceful. At the end of three quarters, Malone had two shots in 32 minutes.

In the turning-point second quarter, the Lakers were outscored, 32-20, and Bryant was one for five from the three-point arc (he was one for seven overall). The Lakers played themselves back with a 14-3 run to start the third quarter, but were 14 points behind again by the middle of the fourth.

“They are a good team on the defensive end and we just were not crisp moving the basketball,” Malone said. “When you do not move the ball it plays into their hands. We knew that.

“We didn’t do a good job of passing the basketball.”

O’Neal had 17 points and nine rebounds and Payton had 21 points and eight rebounds and no Laker had more than four assists.

Parker had nine assists. Duncan had six. And, partly as a result, the Spurs, defending NBA champions, are again in the national consciousness, instead of mainly in San Antonio’s.

“I like where we are,” said Bruce Bowen, who hounded Bryant on defense and scored 12 points. “You don’t have to talk about us. We’re just vanilla, whereas the Lakers are Chunky Monkey or something like that.”

Afterward, Malone stared into the bucket of ice water that healed his feet and ankles and regretted it all, from the limited ball movement to the casual manner in which the Lakers defended the Spurs’ pick-and-rolls.

“I don’t look at anybody except myself,” he said. “I could have done a better job of helping Gary out. I didn’t do it. It was unacceptable. ... We did an absolutely terrible job on pick-and-rolls, and it started with me.”

So the Lakers took a loss at the end of three games in four days and to a skilled team besides. While it proved again their old issues can be future issues, it did eliminate one potential issue.

“Riding an 11-game winning streak,” Rick Fox said, “sometimes you think you get to the invincible state.”