Total Recall and Basic Instinct Finally Kick In

Just think of this game as a giant yellow Post-it note, a reminder from the Lakers to themselves that they’re still capable of doing the things it takes to win basketball games.

The final score was Lakers 113, Atlanta 67, but this baby was over midway through the first quarter. By then the score was 16-2, and by then the Lakers had shown some fundamental basketball for the first time in a week.

What prompted all of this?

“Four losses in a row,” Kobe Bryant said. “It brought it out.”

Maybe this is what Phil Jackson meant when he said this little slump was good for the team. It reinforced their need to take care of the essentials.

Horace Grant rushed out to defend a three-point shot by Stephen Jackson, who missed. When Gary Payton was screened off from his man, Devean George came over to pick him up. Basic things -- rotations, hands in faces, contesting shots -- that were all largely absent in the Lakers’ blowout losses in Minnesota and Denver.

“Definitely tonight our defense kicked our offense off and got us going,” George said. “That’s what we have to do. When guys are struggling or whatever, we have to go to the defensive end, try to make stops.”

“We were really active,” Bryant said. “Cutting off lanes, being aggressive on the ball, boxing guys out, limiting them to one shot, getting them out on the break.”

On offense, they ran the triangle, for a change. Bryant didn’t start the game passively as he had recently. He drove into the paint and either scored or dished to teammates. He played in the offense, played in rhythm and scored 14 points in the first quarter (twice as many as the entire Hawk squad), along with three assists. When he plays this way the entire team benefits.

“I wanted to be aggressive,” Bryant said. “Not so much looking to score, but putting pressure on the defense, taking it upon myself to kind of get us going offensively, getting other guys involved if they’re in the flow, continue to go to them, if not attack myself.”

The Lakers held leads of 22-2 and 34-6 and finished the first quarter up, 34-7. Some fans left by halftime, when the score was 57-28.

Yes, it came against the Hawks, who presented all the challenge of a 5-year-old playing against his dad in the driveway. Last Sunday my favorite stat of the year came in a Hawk game story: 24 different players had set a season high in points against Atlanta. Add Slava Medvedenko to the list after he scored a career-high 26.

But the Lakers didn’t start the night superior to anyone in the NBA. This Atlanta team just won at Denver, where the Lakers were handed a 113-91 beat-down Wednesday in a game that wasn’t that close, a game in which the Lakers played some of the worst basketball seen this season. That was their fourth consecutive defeat, their eighth in 11 games. They lost the last three with Shaquille O’Neal and Karl Malone sidelined by injuries, making Kobe and the Crew look like a purple version of the Orlando Magic.

The Lakers needed something, anything. They were desperate, like a presidential candidate just hoping for a 10% return in the primaries, enough to keep him going.

Things were so bleak that Jackson had to create a new verb.

“We have to tempo the game,” Jackson said beforehand. “It’s really about setting the tempo and being deliberate and getting back collectively on defense and doing all those things, getting a mind-set about the luxury is gone about having Shaquille as a stopper in the back.”

Or, for that matter, a starter on offense. When O’Neal gets the ball the defense collapses around him, leaving his teammates open on the perimeter. When he gets fouled and trudges to the line, even if he misses it gives everyone else a chance to rest and set up the defense.

The Lakers earned their rest collectively Friday, pushing the lead up to 53 points, coasting the rest of the way and allowing the starters to kick back and relax. No one played more than Medvedenko’s 32 minutes. Not even Payton could be unhappy with a 28-minute night, not when that’s all it took for him to record seven assists.

Speaking of assists, the Lakers had a 33:8 assist-to-turnover ratio. That’s staggering.

What’s to keep the Lakers from believing they’re back now, so they can take the rest of the month off?

Well, they shouldn’t have been too impressed with the 57 points they put on the scoreboard in the first half -- not after six of their previous seven opponents had scored at least 56 points by halftime.

And they haven’t won away from Staples Center since Dec. 4, something to keep in mind when they head to Sacramento for their first showdown with the Kings next Friday.

For one night the Lakers played with what Jackson called “the intensity to the game that is necessary to win.”

They won’t beat everyone by 50. But if they play this way, which we all knew they could, they can at least think about winning.

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