Lakers Leave the Driving to McGrady and Rockets

Just when it was safe for Laker followers to think last season was comfortably part of the past ...

The Lakers looked like the Lakers again, not the ones who started the decade with three championship runs, but the ones who completed last season in a 2-19 funk.

Against the seriously short-handed Houston Rockets, they scored a minuscule 32 second-half points and lost, 76-74, Sunday at Staples Center.

Lamar Odom was hesitant throughout the game, Kobe Bryant also had some what-to-do-now moments, and Tracy McGrady didn’t really care about either of their problems, nudging his bedraggled teammates to victory on a driving layup with 0.3 seconds left.

The Lakers, who had won seven of their previous eight games, somehow looked like the fatigued team, even though the Rockets were without five injured players, including Yao Ming, and were in the final game of a six-game trip that equaled the longest in franchise history.

Odom had an entirely forgettable night, taking as many technical fouls, one, as points into the third quarter, and finishing with three points and an assist in 29 minutes. Bryant scored 24 points on six-for-13 shooting, had six assists and was faulted by Laker Coach Phil Jackson for not being aggressive enough. He scored only two points in the fourth quarter, when he was 0 for 3 from the field.

Two days after Jackson scrawled out a written apology to the players for underestimating them at halftime of Friday’s victory against Washington, it was the players’ turn to be sorry.

McGrady made sure of it, dribbling above the key for almost 15 seconds before slicing down the left side past Devean George and guiding the ball through the arms of Odom and Kwame Brown.

“It was disappointing because you cannot just give up a layup to win the game, 35 feet from the basket and the guy dribbles down the lane and just lays the ball up,” Bryant said. “That just shouldn’t happen.”

And then, with jaw clenched, said, “Next time, I’ll guard him.”

Said Jackson: “We stood there and watched McGrady get a layup, which was inexcusable. Our big guys failed us in that situation when they didn’t plug the lane.”

There were other concerns, including Odom, whose only field goal came on a hook shot with 44.8 seconds left to bring the Lakers within 74-72.

Odom had one other aggressive play, picking up a technical foul for jawing with Dikembe Mutombo midway through the third quarter. Jackson said he probably would have benched Odom if he hadn’t noticed Luke Walton looking tired as the game went deeper into the fourth quarter.

“He just wasn’t fluid out there in the game,” Jackson said of Odom. “I felt that he was hesitant operating offensively.”

He wasn’t the only player guilty of indecision.

“We let them guard Kobe with six-foot [David] Wesley and Kobe was hesitant,” Jackson said. “He wasn’t just turning and shooting the ball on this guy who literally can’t defend him in that position.”

Adding more insults with injuries, the Rockets were without Yao, who had a sore big toe, and went with the 39-year-old Mutombo as their starting center. Derek Anderson, Rafer Alston, Jon Barry and Bob Sura also sat out for the Rockets, who suited up only 10 players and were down to nine when Mutombo left with 4:51 to play after dislocating the middle finger on his right hand.

The Lakers failed to tuck away the game early, staggering to a 14-12 lead and missing 12 of 16 shots in the first quarter. They held a 42-31 halftime lead but never could separate fully from the Rockets, making only four of 17 shots in the third quarter on the way to a 65-57 deficit.

McGrady finished with 20 points, but the Lakers were equally burned by Wesley and rookie Luther Head, who combined to make seven of 16 three-point shots against a pliant Laker perimeter defense. Wesley had 18 points and Head had 16. The Lakers almost forced the issue into overtime when Brown picked the ball from McGrady near midcourt and dunked to tie the score at 74-74 with 19.4 seconds left.

But McGrady answered and the Lakers had officially fallen when Smush Parker’s shot from the wing was short as time expired.