Lakers Aren’t Quite Done

Reports of their demise are still exaggerated.

Beginning a stretch in which they’ll play 11 of 15 games on the road, the Lakers showed they still had it Wednesday night, winning a 100-99 thriller over the Warriors, who forgot about the looming trade deadline long enough to chase them to the wire.

This is a two-game win streak for the Lakers, once nothing you’d think about. However, no team needs momentum more than they do, so their choices are clear -- develop some or scatter themselves all over the landscape -- making Coach Phil Jackson grateful for small rallies.

Sometimes it seems like it’s a race pitting the Lakers’ talent and ambition against their doubts and resentments. For the second game in a row, this was Kobe Bryant in accommodative mode, following Tuesday’s 31-point, eight-rebound, 10-assist game against the Trail Blazers with a 35-6-8 line.

Jackson called the Portland effort “a hopeful game,” noting his players were trying to get the ball to one another so hard, they kept over-passing and turning the ball over, which kept the Trail Blazers in the game.

On the other hand, it’s better than all those weeks of not passing to each other, and Jackson said he “liked the idea, the effort, the thought behind it.”

Not that their past is letting go that easily.

In Wednesday’s Washington Post, an unnamed Laker complained about Bryant, noting, “What more does he want us to do? He’s won here, he’s well paid, everybody except Shaq turns flips to make him happy, including Phil.

“And he trashes Phil like that? What can he do without Shaq that he hasn’t done with him? Is there something bigger than winning the title that we don’t know of? We don’t know what’s going on with him.”

The writer, Michael Wilbon, said the quotes came a few days before Sunday’s All-Star game. In other words, we don’t know if this is the ongoing problem, the media rehashing the old problem, or if the old problem is ongoing.

Of course, the proof is out on the floor, revealed nightly.

Wednesday brought the Lakers face to face with an old friend, and foe, Nick Van Exel, who was only one of the Warriors with an uncertain future locally.

Van Exel can opt out this summer and has made it clear he wants to leave. Center Erick Dampier has an opt-out and was being mentioned in trade speculation.

Van Exel has been with three teams since the Lakers sent him into exile in 1998. Who thought they’d be loonier without him than with him?

“The year after I left, they got Dennis Rodman,” said Van Exel before the game, laughing.

“I mean, it’s nothing new. I just think they play well when they do things like that. When there’s always controversy, that’s when they’re at their best. I don’t think teams really like to see them when they’re bickering and things like that, because they just find a way to tune in and really get focused....

“Every team in the league goes through things. And every team in the league patches things up, but most teams can’t do it on the court.... They can do that.”

Van Exel had one of his tough-guy games Wednesday, scoring four points in the first three quarters and nine in the fourth, when he almost brought down his old employers, which would have definitely made his month.

However, trailing 100-99, he got into the lane for one of his runners, encountered Shaquille O’Neal, as so many Warriors seemed to at the end of the game, and missed.

The Lakers may never see Van Exel here again.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Van Exel will ever see this Laker combination anywhere, either.

“It’s kind of hard to tell,” Van Exel said. “I know Kobe’s the kind of player, he really wants to do something, go off and do his own thing, because that’s the kind of competitive edge that he has. So it’s going to be tough. I can’t really come up with an answer for that one.”

The answer has yet to be delivered, but it’s coming, on the floor first, officially afterward.