Actions Must Speak Louder Than Words

The Lakers weren’t really in the mood by Thursday afternoon, having arrived early in the morning from San Antonio and another loss in the Western Conference semifinals, then sitting through a believe-in-yourselves speech by Phil Jackson and a back-and-forth replay of Wednesday night’s game.

They emerged from the practice facility looking groggy, many of them reluctant to stop and relive Game 2 again or consider Sunday’s Game 3 at Staples Center.

Kobe Bryant walked into the sunlight and a half-dozen television men lifted cameras to their shoulders, only to have Bryant snap, “Might as well put ‘em down.”

Not long before, Shaquille O’Neal had used the same tactic, saying, “I’m off today, so don’t follow me.”

As reporters toddled behind anyway, he did allow, “We’re all right.”

The Lakers got past the Houston Rockets in five games in the first round of the playoffs, but they’re in an 0-2 hole against the San Antonio Spurs.

“They’re OK,” Jackson insisted. “We did this last year.”

Yes, they went out 0-2 in last year’s conference semifinals against the Spurs and tied them at 2-2 before losing twice, finally at Staples Center. Still to be seen is if these Lakers are expert enough in Jackson’s system and comfortable enough with one another to win consistently, and against a good team.

In two games, they have committed 38 turnovers and they can’t seem to get more than one superstar involved at a time, Bryant’s 31 points in Game 1 followed by O’Neal’s 32 in Game 2, Karl Malone and Gary Payton largely having been left out. The Spurs made the critical plays at the critical times. Their top four scorers in the series -- Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Rasho Nesterovic -- are shooting at least 50% from the floor. Duncan has made 64.5% of his attempts.

So, some of the hard things -- defense, ball management and cooperation -- have been left undone, in part because it is the rare possession when every Laker knows what the other four are up to.

“They haven’t gone through as many battles and so many successes, so [there’s] that perhaps,” Jackson said. “But I think that might be overstated. There’s some things that are said about that, but it might be overstated that this team can’t play together because of their relatively new emergence together and the fact they’ve got some discord.”

A little discord never hurt the Lakers before, but they have super-sized everything this year, talent and distraction chief among them. So, they survived the regular season and the average Rockets without anything too alarming, but so far can’t match the Spurs, precise in most things.

“It’s got to get better,” Malone said. “That’s how we look at it right now.

“I don’t know what you guys expect me to say, but I’m just stubborn enough to think we can get this turned around.”

To win the series, the Lakers will have to win four times in five games, at least once still at SBC Center, where they are 0-5 over two postseason series.

They start with three days between games, then play the Mother’s Day affair that will decide how close they are to the inevitable changes that will come with the end of their season together.

In the meantime, they’ll choose to be encouraged by the small victories. Jackson pointed out that the Lakers won the final three quarters Wednesday and that they’d been close in both fourth quarters. He failed to mention other promising signs -- for instance that he has outdressed Gregg Popovich twice, and that he has screamed at Malone (once) only as often as he has at Duncan (once).

Also, O’Neal is running out of relatives who will criticize Bryant, which should help Bryant’s mood and, in turn, his game, as long as neither are on camera.

“People don’t understand, we don’t make a big deal out of those things,” Jackson said. “There’s going to be a lot of talk and a lot of smoke during the course of a series, and you just have to let that roll off you and play on.”

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The Comebacks

Seven teams have come back from an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-seven playoff series:

*--* YEAR TEAMS ROUND RESULT 1995 Houston def. Phoenix Conference semifinals 4-3 1994 Houston def. Phoenix Conference semifinals 4-3 1993 Chicago def. New York Conference finals 4-2 1977 Portland def. Philadelphia NBA Finals 4-2 1971 Baltimore def. New York Conference finals 4-3 1969 Lakers def. San Francisco Conference semifinals 4-2 1969 Boston def. Lakers NBA Finals 4-3

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