Lakers Need Quick Results for Credibility

If the Lakers are anything close to what they think they can be, they will beat the Houston Rockets today.

The Lakers can’t win a championship or even this first-round series here in Game 4. All they can do is earn some credit, let us grant them the benefit of the doubt, believe them when they say they’ll be all right.

Look, it’s not like the Rockets are some “fugazy” team, to use the most popular word of the playoffs. Their defense makes it tough for the Lakers to find good shots and they can make Shaquille O’Neal work in the low post and on the perimeter, whether it’s the challenge of guarding Yao Ming or the task of picking up Steve Francis on the pick and roll. It’s no shock that they won a game against the Lakers.

But the Lakers are better. They know it. Deep down inside, the Rockets know it. So why mess around, why not get this thing over by Wednesday, the earliest expiration date most people had for this series?

Yes, there are ridiculously high expectations that come with playing in Lakerland, where the victories are assumed and the losses treated as something just short of Armageddon.

After the Lakers dropped Game 3 to the Rockets, a teammate’s mother explained to Karl Malone: “We’re supposed to win every game.”

Perhaps a victory every time out is an unreasonable request. But is a solid effort too much to ask?

Query Lakers about when their last great tipoff-to-buzzer game occurred and prepare for a little pause. The answer takes a while, because it has been a while.

Malone looks back to the Lakers’ 11-game winning streak that came to a halt four weeks ago. Rick Fox highlights the Lakers’ victories over Sacramento and Minnesota on March 24 and 26.

Here we are nearing the end of April, and they’re talking about games in March?

The playoffs usually bring out the best in the Lakers, but they began the postseason by shooting 33% in Game 1. That was at the end of a physically and emotionally draining week that included four plane rides, two overtimes, a two-spot hop in the playoff seedings and one giant controversy.

But after three days off last week, the Lakers lacked offensive and defensive execution in Game 3 on Friday night.

A change of venue might have made a difference, but it should not have been enough to throw off the Lakers. The Rockets were 27-14 in Toyota Center during the regular season, the worst home record of any Western Conference playoff team.

The problem with the Lakers is they never know what to expect no matter where or when they play.

“That’s been the season though: inconsistent stretches of brilliance mixed with inconsistent play,” Fox said. “That’s what this year’s team has been about.

“We’re playing very good teams at this point in the year, also finding ourselves having to make adjustments on the fly. We don’t have the experience of having enough experienced triangle players to step out on the floor and for Phil [Jackson] to let us go and let us read the defense and make the adjustments as we see fit. There’s more control from the bench because there has to be.

“This is definitely a different approach to the playoffs than we’ve had in the past.”

There’s no comfort zone, no reliable offense for them to fall back on when things get tough. Because Malone and Gary Payton are so unfamiliar with the offense, Jackson has scaled down the scheme, making the Lakers more predictable. And they’re still not running it properly. By taking bad shots from unusual spots on the court, it puts them out of position on defense, throwing them out of whack at that end of the court.

That’s why it has been so long since the Lakers played well start to finish, end to end.

To Kobe Bryant, the last great Laker game was Game 2, because the Lakers won.

“Who cares” about greatness, he said. “The most important thing about this time of year is just winning. Just win the game, by any means necessary. Get it done. On nights when I struggle, I just say, ‘You know what? Just keep on pushing through it. Do whatever I can to help us win the game.’

“There’s nothing you can do about it, the shot’s not falling or the last five possessions have gone bad for us as a team, you just push it aside and try to win by any means necessary. That’s what the playoffs is about, really.”

But if they’re struggling to get by the Rockets, who have four playoff rookies among their top six players, what’s going to happen against an experienced group such as the San Antonio Spurs?

For now, they’re locked in a series with the Rockets. Amid all the dour analysis of what’s wrong with the Lakers, they still have a 2-1 lead, with home court advantage intact.

The only thing that hasn’t wavered on this Laker team is the players’ confidence.

Fox promised a return of The Lakers, the capitalized, imposing version.

“You’ll see it” today, he said. “I know. You’ll see it.”

Said O’Neal about the Rockets: “They’re going to have to play much better on Sunday, because I know we’re going to play much better.”

We’ll see whether we can believe him.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.