Lakers won’t play percentages

The afterglow of a Game 2 victory was illuminating the Lakers’ locker room until Luke Walton snuffed it out.

“Remember Phoenix?” he asked hauntingly, but also aptly.

Two years ago, the Lakers led a first-round series by two games, creating ripples in the NBA world by taking a 3-1 lead over the second-seeded Suns. The Lakers made history, though, by becoming only the eighth NBA team to lose a series after holding such a lead.

Forgive them if they don’t want to hear about the highly favorable percentages in their corner with a 2-0 edge on Denver in their best-of-seven series. (There’s a 93.6% success rate in league history with such a lead, if you dare to whisper it around the Lakers.)

Walton took it upon himself to remind some teammates at Thursday’s practice that a three-game lead would look a lot better than being up two. Game 3 is Saturday in Denver.

“When something like that happens, you don’t tend to forget it,” Walton said of the Suns’ comeback in 2006. “That’s one of those things that kind of gets to you when you’re sitting around the house during the summer, something that sticks out in your memory as something’s that gone, that slips away. We can’t let this one get away.”

This is the 36th time the Lakers have won the first two games of a best-of-seven series, and only once did they fail to advance.

In 1969, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics rallied from a 2-0 deficit to break the Lakers’ hearts in the NBA Finals, winning Game 7 at the Forum.

Four decades later, it still resonates.

“That’s something we definitely don’t want to happen to us,” Walton said.

Individually, Walton has stolen a chapter from Robert Horry’s book. Maybe a few pages from Shaquille O’Neal’s tome too.

After a regular season in which his stats sagged, he has come alive in the playoffs, averaging 17 points, 5.5 rebounds and five assists against Denver.

This is more like what the Lakers hoped to get after signing Walton, 28, to a six-year, $30-million deal last summer.

“It’s great to have a spark off the bench,” Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said. “He bailed us out in the first game. He had a real big effort there.”

That Kobe Bryant guy had a decent run in Game 2.

Bryant’s 49-point, 10-assist eruption showcased his shooting, his passing and his competitive streak.

He exchanged words with Kenyon Martin in Game 1 and J.R. Smith in Game 2. The barbs were flying. So was Bryant.

“I’m already wired pretty tight, so when something like that goes on, it tightens up [the intensity] a little bit more,” Bryant said.

A day later, he was asked to stack his Game 2 performance next to his 81-point game against Toronto in 2006, comparing and contrasting them.

He laughed as the past flickered through his mind, however briefly.

“What you have to understand about the 81-point game is that we needed all of those points to beat the Raptors, who weren’t the Raptors that we know today,” he said. “With the team that we currently have, I don’t need to go on those runs. If I get hot, I get hot, we’ll ride the hot hand, but it’s not something that’s needed. To me, it’s just two completely different scenarios.”

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Ronny Turiaf trudged toward the exit after another missed practice because of a tonsillitis.

“When’s the old Ronny going to come back?” assistant coach Kurt Rambis yelled out, his tone more hopeful than anything.

Turiaf, known for his energy on the court and on the bench, will travel with the team to Denver and is still day to day.

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The Lakers weren’t exactly burning up the nets at Thursday’s practice.

“I sensed a bunch of guys that were tired or just didn’t want to do a whole lot of practice,” Jackson said. “They were lazy.”

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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GAME 3: Lakers at Nuggets

Saturday, 2:30 p.m. PDT (TNT, Channel 9)

Lakers lead best-of-seven series, 2-0