One against five isn’t going to work

Because the playoffs are about adjustments and Kobe Bryant couldn’t do it on his own in Game 1, the Lakers know they have to play team ball.

Now all they need is the team.

What you see is all they’ve got, confidence-wise as well as personnel-wise. Under duress, they stop running their offense, inbound the ball to Bryant and get out of his way.

Of course, when this happens, everyone on the other team zones up on Kobe and he can go four for 16, as in Sunday’s second half.

“He is human,” said Phoenix Coach Mike D’Antoni, asked how they contained him. “He can’t make every shot, hopefully.”

This anything-can-happen-in-the-playoffs mantra can get tenuous, indeed, as in the Lakers’ case where it really means:

Maybe we can go through the looking glass or travel through hyper-space or go back in time.

Miracles can happen, this just isn’t one so far.

The Lakers are still stuck in year three of the post-Shaquille O’Neal rebuilding process, without enough players.

Under almost anyone else, this would have been dismayingly clear years ago, but the hallmark of a Phil Jackson team is the reassurance he exudes ... even as he highlights its flaws in his inimitable style.

Four games before the regular season ended, while sending Kwame Brown valentines through the press, trying to lure him out of the trainer’s room, Jackson was told Brown was thinking of sitting out until the playoffs to rest his bruised ankle.

By way of reply, Jackson pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and waved it.

Two games before the season ended, Jackson swapped out two of his starters.

One move was expected with Brown finally available to take over for Andrew Bynum, who had been out on his feet for months.

The other was telling, Smush Parker going out of the lineup with Jackson all but saying he quit in his last start (“He gave us an effort that wasn’t up to what we had to have.”)

Because the alternative was rookie Jordan Farmar, who had started two games in the D-league after being sent down (the hall) to regain his confidence but none in the NBA, this was no small act of desperation.

So you couldn’t say the Lakers hit the postseason on a roll, or at least not in the right direction.

It’s late to be wondering if they want Bryant to take over in the first quarter or the fourth but after their 16-27 finish, they don’t know which way is up.

Of course, you have to have a brilliant player for there even to be a debate.

Nevertheless, since Dr. James Naismith invented the game in 1891, it’s pretty well established that it’s best to use all five players.

Basketball history is filled with heroes and goats whose stories all have the same moral like Bill Russell, the team player who won 11 titles (good) and Wilt Chamberlain, who owns half the record book but only two titles (not as good.)

At a certain point, individual brilliance is self-defeating ... but it sure plays well in the press.

Even as Bryant got over the hump about playing with teammates, establishing himself beyond argument as the game’s best player, the airwaves rang with calls for him to go back to gunning as if he was still at Lower Merion.

Not to pick on ESPN’s Jim Rome, because so many others said it, but I happened to write this one down:

“It’s pretty obvious Kobe Bryant is a much better teammate this year. He’s sharing the rock, he’s more trusting of his teammates and he’s getting everybody involved. And the sooner he stops with all that nonsense, the better off he’s going to be.”

Opinion falls into a familiar pattern:

* The Lakers win, in which case Bryant took just the right number of shots.

* The Lakers lose, in which case Kobe should have shot more or less.

The capper was last spring’s Game 7, when Bryant scored 23 points in the first half as the Suns went up by 15 and one in the second half as they won by 31.

He was pilloried from coast to coast for that one, although Jackson said he told him to do it that way.

Bryant may indeed have felt some frustration with his teammates

Running low on reassurance, Jackson says he’ll wait to see what changes they make before deciding whether he wants a contract extension past next season.

Bryant hasn’t said anything but he’s not as patient as Jackson.

And now back to this season, or what’s left of it.

mark.heisler@latimes.com