Payton’s Clouds Lift After Stormy Speech

You didn’t need to see a stat sheet to know that Gary Payton had a good game Sunday. Didn’t need to use your eyes at all. Simply standing in the locker room and listening to the loudest voice coming from the showers gave you all the information.

Gary Payton talking loudly is as close an indication of a normal state as you’ll find among these wacky, dysfunctional Lakers.

Maybe they needed to dedicate themselves to helping Payton, because it is a team game, after all. Maybe Payton needed to get a few things off his chest.

With the Lakers sending extra defenders whenever Tony Parker penetrated, they got their starting point guard back and now they’re back in the Western Conference semifinals, trailing the San Antonio Spurs, two games to one.

Payton scored 15 points, his most yet in these playoffs and four more than his total in the two previous games. He also had seven assists and led a Laker defense that limited Parker to eight points, 17 below his average in the first two games.

Parker’s well-documented domination of Payton in the first two games produced a well-publicized rant by Payton after Saturday’s practice. His animated responses to questions about Parker appeared all over television.

Among his comments: “Y’all can blame me for everything, man, I don’t care. I mean, I don’t listen to all that. You’re going to put me here for one year and then you’re going to tell me I’m the problem of this situation now, huh? Whatever. Blame me. I could care less, man.”

But it was obvious he did care. His voice grew louder and louder. His head bobbed around. He glared at people.

This looked like Payton. This wasn’t the grumpy guy who sat silently on the bench when Coach Phil Jackson didn’t play him in the fourth quarters of two first-round games against Houston.

At those times it appeared he already had checked out of Lakerland. No stopping by the front desk, just leave the room charges on the credit card, head straight through the hotel lobby and hop in the cab to the airport.

But his high level of agitation Saturday showed he still had some sort of emotional attachment. If a fan base with its sights aimed at the messengers wants to blame members of the media for all of the Laker turmoil this year, can we at least get some credit for reviving Payton?

“I’m just stating what I felt,” Payton said after Sunday’s game. “That’s all it was. I know how to play this game. I don’t listen to people who write about me. Why don’t you come out there and play against me and let’s see what happens? I wasn’t worried about that.

“I’m just telling people who write things and want to sell papers, I know how to play this game. It’s a team-oriented game and everybody helps everybody. That’s all that matters. It’s not Gary Payton against San Antonio. It wasn’t me playing five and nine guys. It wasn’t nothing. It was me saying what I had to say.”

His mother, Annie Payton, liked what she heard from her son.

“I thought it was good,” she said. “We thought he was going to say something else, but it was good.”

What did she think he was going to say?

“Something crazy.”

Payton came this close to naming names when asked what was wrong with the Laker defense against Parker. But it was obvious to anyone who watched that the Laker big men weren’t jumping out well enough whenever Parker came off screens, and no one came over to block Parker’s shots or knock him to the ground when he got to the hoop.

After rationalizing Payton’s right and need to “stand on his hind legs and bark if he gets a chance to defend himself” -- uh, OK -- Jackson also said before the game that the Lakers had to do a better job of assisting Payton.

So the Lakers sent help from the wings, even if it meant leaving Spur shooters wide open for three-pointers. The Spurs made 41% of them, but it still was better than allowing Parker to score layup after layup.

O’Neal, who was all over the court and the box score Sunday, gave Parker one serious body blow and blocked two of his shots. The most dramatic swat bounced off the backboard and right to O’Neal, who turned and fired a pass downcourt to Payton for a layup.

Karl Malone said the credit began with Payton, who initiated the Laker defense by forcing Parker to dribble to his left.

“More than anything, I think Gary did it himself,” Malone said. “Gary played, to me, a really good defensive game. What he wanted to do in the pick-and-roll, he did that.”

After a week’s worth of stories that Payton was finished, with some even questioning his Hall of Fame credentials, Payton insisted this game “wasn’t an I-told-you-so.”

“I know I can play basketball,” Payton said. “I don’t care about what people talk about me or whatever. I’ve been playing basketball for 14 years in this league. I know what’s going on.”

Annie Payton, coming from Oakland to attend her first game of the playoffs (“He needed his Mommy”), thought he played well.

“Maybe this’ll help his confidence, since they’ve been dogging him in the media,” she said.

Gary Payton finished his interview session, but that didn’t mean he was finished talking. As he strolled by the cluster of reporters gathered around Derek Fisher, he noticed Fisher’s choice of headwear and shouted “D-Fish with the Kangol!”

And GP with his game back, for once not getting his hat handed to him.

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