Too Much Sun in L.A.

There he stood, on the sidelines, late Thursday night, gesturing for an exhausted team and a frustrated city.

Jack Nicholson, sunglasses tight, but fingers waving, desperately trying to hex the Phoenix Suns into finally giving up.

“Yeah, we saw him, it was hilarious,” said the Suns’ Tim Thomas. “And you know, he got us once. But we got him back. And it was a big one.”

A giant one. A stunning one. A series-cracking one?

Six seconds from a victory, the Lakers lost.

Moments after another incredible Kobe Bryant shot, the Lakers blew it.

Shortly after chasing the Suns into an overtime, the Lakers collapsed.

They’re going to need more than a Joker’s tricks to survive now.

The Suns have tied this Western Conference first-round series at 3-3 after a 126-118 overtime victory in Game 6 at Staples Center.

Their best hope can be found in the wisdom of Bryant’s best toilet humor.

“When you go to the bathroom, you can’t stand there and look at what you just dropped,” he said afterward. “At some point, you have to flush.”

This is what happens when your star player is also a young father going through potty training.

But as Bryant’s game-long scowl showed, what happened to the Lakers on Thursday wasn’t funny.

He scored 50 points, but his team seemed afraid to help.

“It was like they just wanted to throw the ball to Kobe and stand around,” Thomas said.

Bryant gave them the lead in the final minutes of regulation with a fallaway three-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer, and a cool layup. But his inside guys allowed Shawn Marion to steal an offensive rebound that led to Thomas’ game-tying three pointer.

“It was like the other guys were playing real tight,” Thomas said.

Bryant then scored the first two baskets of overtime.

But when he finally had to pass the ball, his teammates couldn’t handle it, missing three shots and making a turnover while Bryant scored 12 of the team’s 13 overtime points.

“We love these games,” said Leandro Barbosa, who scored 22 points while replacing suspended Sun guard Raja Bell in the starting lineup. “The fun is not in 30-point wins in the regular season. The fun is in one-point games under pressure.”

The Lakers, at least right now, don’t seem to agree.

“We had it all done but cross the ‘T,’ ” said Laker Coach Phil Jackson. “There’s no doubt about the fact that it’s high drama.”

And to think, earlier, the question was gone.

When the giant sheets fluttered from the Staples Center scoreboard to the floor Thursday night, giant black words read, “We Believe.”

Before the first two Laker playoff games, that had been followed by, “Do You?”

Before this game, the question was gone.

Of course everyone believed that the Lakers seem fated to close out the Suns.

After Sunday’s miracle here? After Bell’s suspension on Tuesday in Phoenix? With the Clippers waiting? The Lakers would come back and finish off the Suns, right?

Well, turns out, Sunday’s Lakers didn’t return.

And the question did.

Do you still believe?

Belief is now officially hard. And it’s getting harder.

The Laker-Clipper matchup that this city craves has been pushed to the brink by a Phoenix team that has gotten hot, and a Laker team that has gotten sloppy.

It is a Phoenix team that is playing with a smile, and a Laker team that is playing as if their jaws are wired shut.

It is a Phoenix team that now seems fated, while the Lakers just seem fragile.

The Suns would be only the eighth team in NBA history to come back from a three-games-to-one deficit to win a series, but who would now be betting against them?

History is on their side, considering only 17 of 92 teams that have played Game 7 on the road have won.

Remember how the Shaq-Kobe Lakers initially had trouble closing out playoff series?

In their first nine tries to close out series, they lost eight times ... then went eight for eight.

These Lakers are clearly suffering the growing pains of those Lakers.

“We talked about breath control, about getting yourself centered,” Jackson said before the game.

The Suns, meanwhile, were talking about something else.

Like, having fun?

“I told my guys, ‘It’s your game, it’s your time,’ ” Sun Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I told them, ‘You need to seize this moment, this is why you play.’ ”

The Suns seized this game.

The Lakers simply seized.

Do you believe?

You don’t have to answer.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.