He Has Lakers Banding Together

It’s the time of the season when Phil Jackson slips a championship ring onto one of his fingers, a symbol of past greatness and a reminder of the possibility of future triumph.

He is now wearing his 2000 championship ring, the first of three he won as Laker coach, when a dynasty was in its infancy and potential was finally fulfilled after lingering uncomfortably for a few years.

The parallels aren’t as strong with the current Lakers, who missed the playoffs last season and are seeded No. 7 in the Western Conference. But it was Jackson who wrote “15” on the locker-room board after they won in Phoenix to even their first-round series with the Suns at 1-1.

That many more victories would enable Jackson to claim another ring, and although nobody is saying that will happen this season, the increased media buzz at Thursday’s Laker practice coupled with the what’s-going-on quotes coming out of the Phoenix camp make one consider which way the series is tilting.

Kobe Bryant was much more assertive in Game 2, shooting more often, continuing to find open teammates and coming to the aid of Sasha Vujacic by throwing a few words of caution at Steve Nash.

Lamar Odom is averaging 21 points, shooting 63% in the series and frustrating Sun forward Shawn Marion to no end. Kwame Brown continues to be a functioning part of the master plan, and Vujacic and Luke Walton are contributing to the cause.

But Bryant, who has seen the beginning of playoff runs from the other, younger side, knows what happens when a veteran team loses to an underdog earlier than expected in a series. Game 3 is tonight at Staples Center.

“They’re going to step up their level,” he said. “I think that’s where our youth will grow up quickly, because once you get a win, now that team’s going to come back and they’re going to come back at you hard. We have to be ready to raise our level and meet that intensity.”

Indeed, things were a little less friendly at Sun practice, where Marion raised his voice at a Phoenix columnist who had criticized the Sun forward in a Thursday story for his tendency to disappear in the playoffs. Marion averaged only 7.8 points in a five-game loss to San Antonio in last season’s Western Conference finals.

“I’ve got to find a way,” he told reporters before he vented at the columnist. “It’s easy for me to sit here and say this. With me having experience playing in the playoffs, I’ve been put in this situation like this before versus San Antonio, where they were trying to take away our running game. You can put it on me all you want to, but I’m here to play. I can only control one thing, and that’s my energy on the floor.”

The Laker defense is mostly to blame. Maligned for the greater part of two seasons since Shaquille O’Neal and his shot-blocking, space-eating presence moved to Miami, it has stood strong against the Suns.

The NBA’s highest-scoring offense during the regular season (108.4 points per game) was held to 93 in Game 2. Nash had six turnovers and Marion, a three-time All-Star, had only 13 points on five-for-15 shooting.

The Lakers were a middle-of-the-pack 15th in regular-season scoring defense, but they kept the Suns without a point for a 7-minute 22-second chunk of Game 2. The Suns missed all seven of their shots and committed seven turnovers during the span, which began with the Suns leading, 22-19, late in the first quarter and ended with the Lakers up, 38-22.

Again, more confusion from the Sun perspective.

“The biggest thing is right now they are imposing their will on us,” Sun Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “All year, we played to win in a sense that when Amare [Stoudemire] went down, we had a chip on our shoulders. Everybody said we couldn’t do it, and we really didn’t have anything to lose.

“Now, all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, if we fail now, we’re not who we are. And we’re playing that way. We’re playing cautious and we’re playing with a weight on our shoulders. It’s been like that for about a month or so.

“We need to get back to Phoenix Suns basketball. We need to run. We need to get the ball up and down. We need to take shots and we need to even force some shots sometimes.

“If we play the way we want to play and if we impose what we want to do and they beat us three more times, God love them because they’re better than us. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

The Lakers obviously think a little bit differently.

The Suns had been 8-1 against the Lakers since the O’Neal trade, and then came Game 2, where it’s possible the Suns overlooked some of Bryant’s teammates.

“Probably,” Bryant acknowledged. “The times that we played them, we weren’t ready to step up and play this kind of game. We’re ready now. Everybody knows their spots, everybody’s comfortable in the system. We’re comfortable with one another, and now we’re ready to attack them.”