Lakers Need a Simple Answer

On their way back to San Antonio, back to Coach Phil Jackson’s beloved Rio Verde and authentic tacos, the Lakers on Tuesday afternoon observed the familiar ideals of ball movement, defensive rigor and teammate camaraderie, in time, they hope, for Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals.

That would be tonight at SBC Center, the Lakers trailing after one game, the San Antonio Spurs seemingly growing stronger in the rivalry as the Lakers seemingly grow older and more dispirited.

It could all change in a single game, and would have had the Lakers finished Game 1 on anything other than a turnover-a-minute pace, turning the predictable Spur offense into something approaching dynamic.

“We’ve just got to do it,” Shaquille O’Neal said, speaking in a group about 10 feet from Kobe Bryant. “We’ve got to limit our mistakes, we have to take the high-percentage shots and we have to play smart. Simple. Very simple. We just have to go do it.”

In the news of the day, revealed as the Lakers cleared out of El Segundo to catch their third charter flight in four days, Gary Payton doesn’t simply have a sore back and aching pride, but a tender Achilles’ tendon as well. Jackson said Payton has been suffering on it for two weeks.

Jackson said he expects Payton to start and defend Spur point guard Tony Parker. After that, it has become anyone’s guess. Payton did not stop to talk Tuesday. As for bringing Payton back into the season and the series, Karl Malone said, “We will.”

After a moment, he shrugged and smiled and said, “I’ll probably have to do it myself.”

Malone has maintained his good standing with Payton, even as the point guard has soured on Jackson and the way Bryant runs off with the offense, without him. Often Payton gets the basketball to the three-point arc, bounces a pass to Bryant and goes away, removed by Bryant or his own exasperation.

If Malone thought he was out of the leadership business when he left Utah and came to the veteran-heavy Lakers, then he wasn’t paying attention. The stable Lakers often have been overrun by the mercurial superstars. So, the Lakers went out and got new superstars, and still the egos collide and, now, Malone tries to soothe them.

“I get here,” Malone said, “and it’s kind of the same. It’s another one of those things they expect me to do.”

It’s about direction, said Malone, who figured to have a long conversation with Payton before tonight’s game, perhaps on the flight to Texas.

“Everything else is not that important,” he said. “Just come out and play the game.”

In that regard, it seems less important how they’ll defend Tim Duncan in the post or Parker on the perimeter and more critical how they’ll get Malone and Payton included, and how they’ll then learn to be more familiar with one another. Until then, they’ll hold to Bryant in a pinch and continue to be seduced by O’Neal being fronted in the post.

“I think we have too many good players on our team for our championship hopes to rest on my offense,” Bryant said.

The Lakers were famously resilient in their championship years, winning through all manner of turmoil and intrigue. If that has changed for good, it’s possible they’ll know by tonight, in another fourth quarter.

Sometimes these Lakers seem to be held together with a roll of Gary Vitti’s athletic tape and that is all, that fragile.

In the past, the Lakers knew where to lean. It doesn’t always look that way now. So, a second loss, even with two games in Los Angeles to follow, might prove fatal.

“We don’t think past this game,” Jackson said. “This is the game to play. That’s the way it is in sports, that’s the way it is in series.

“Right now, I do think that Sunday is Mother’s Day. That’s about all I know about.

“How many series have you guys watched where teams [lose the first two games], they go home and end up winning two games?”

Besides, Jackson said, “I think we gained a lot of that confidence in the Houston series. I don’t think we made the adjustment that was necessary in San Antonio. It’s just the first game of the series, so we’re not quite thinking in those terms.”