Lakers Fishing for an Answer

Derek Fisher is trying. That’s what he has right now. He doesn’t like it either.

At a time when Karl Malone and Shaquille O’Neal cannot play, the Lakers are losing and the weight of Kobe Bryant’s ordeal concerning sexual assault charges is as burdensome as ever, Fisher has not helped.

Many players haven’t, of course, and that is why the Lakers flew home from Denver with a four-game losing streak and with more problems, for now, than solutions.

Coach Phil Jackson asked them to try harder, but, by their own words and deeds, the Lakers simply quit against the gamer, livelier Nuggets, a team that had lost four of five games.

After a 16-point loss the night before at Minnesota, Jackson railed against their sins of inactivity and carelessness. And then they lost by 22 points at Denver, giving up 63 points through two quarters and 97 through three.

On Wednesday night, 30 minutes after the Lakers’ sixth loss in seven games, Fisher moved away from the dozens of reporters who surrounded Bryant, another handful who loitered near Gary Payton, and almost whispered, “I’m holding up,” as though it were all he could do. He spoke for them all.

The night before in Minneapolis, Jackson summoned a player from the game, and as the player plodded past the bench, Jackson snapped at him, “I don’t know if you’re hurt or dead.”

The good news was, no one showed up on the injured list the next morning, and the only thing in the morgue is their 18-3 record to start the season. The Lakers are 3-8 since, which feels a lot like the first month of last season, which they began 3-9 because of a similar disregard for defense.

“What, me worry?” Jackson asked, forcing a grin. “There’s a doldrums in the season.... We’ll take the time to put this team back together again and ... I’ll try and get these guys’ chins off the floor. I think they’re feeling sorry for themselves.”

While Jackson was prodded into admitting, “We have to move players that aren’t competing out there,” meaning trading them away, the Lakers are more likely to lean on Bryant and Payton and simply hold on until Malone and O’Neal return, if they can.

“You guys know me, I think this is really good for us,” Jackson said after a team meeting Thursday afternoon in El Segundo. “We were real cocky about being 20-4, or whatever our record was at the time, and we got a little bit lackadaisical. Now we’ve got to get back to the basics of basketball and pay attention to what we have to do. It’s all about focus and putting the right foot forward and doing the right thing out there on the court.... It’ll make us a better team.”

Meantime, they’d like to depend more on Devean George, but he missed 10 of 12 shots on the trip and has made two of his last 20 from the floor. And they’d like to depend more on Fisher, an organizational favorite who has been unable to find a comfortable spot in the season.

That’s what he has. He doesn’t like it.

Having replaced the capable Fisher in the off-season with the more skilled Payton at point guard, giving Payton the starting job and most of the minutes that go with it, the Lakers find themselves needing the old Fisher again. The offense is a jumble. The young players are in over their heads. They need someone to make a three-point basket, someone to take a charge.

“It’s definitely been tougher than any other situation I’ve been in,” Fisher said. “It takes a lot of energy to fight all that stuff off. I’m using so much energy to fight off the negative thoughts, the energy on the court isn’t what it should be.”

He can opt out of his contract after this season, or come back for another $3 million. He said he hasn’t decided.

“I’m not motivated by this being my contract year,” he said. “That’s so far from where I am and what I’m thinking about.”

He is healthy again. His role has diminished, but the Lakers signed Payton five months ago. Fisher started coming off the bench more than two months ago. They need him to adapt.

“It still doesn’t make it easier,” said Fisher, averaging 21.5 minutes and 7.5 points. “It just hasn’t been fun watching three quarters of basketball from the sideline.”

While Jackson has dabbled in lineups that have Fisher sharing the backcourt with Payton and Bryant playing small forward, Fisher more often plays with a second unit, many of whom are unschooled in the triangle and unfamiliar with one another. He has made the Laker system work for him, and now it’s not there for him. And even as he developed a mid-range offensive game, he relied on the triangle concepts for chances.

So, as Malone and Payton learned Jackson’s ways, as Rick Fox recovered from surgery, as veterans such as Robert Horry and Brian Shaw were moved out, Fisher appears to be the one left behind. His shooting percentages (35.1% from the floor, 29.1% from the arc) are at or near career-low levels and Jackson has observed that Fisher is indecisive where he was once aggressive, perhaps rash where he was once patient.

“The main thing, I’m a team guy,” Fisher said. “Even in past years, my energy has been a reflection of our team’s energy. Individually, I’m just trying to stay tough and be strong and not be discouraged or lose confidence, which definitely has not happened. I’m still confident. Still, there’s been a lot of nights I haven’t really felt like I was out there, like I was not really connected to the game.”