Lakers need a new outlook

Even though the Lakers are essentially playing the Washington Generals, I took Thursday night’s pregame chat with Phil Jackson very seriously so he wouldn’t roll his head, groan and react with the disgust usually reserved for Sasha Vujacic.

“I have an important question for you,” I began.

“I doubt it,” Jackson said, like I’d actually choose this time to ask where we’re going to be dining together between games.

“With all this talk about maybe not handling the road games in Utah,” I asked, “and we’re talking the No. 8 seed here, how can you even think about beating Cleveland?”

Pretty good question for the Champs, don’t you think?

“Who says we can’t handle it?” said Jackson, so I immediately pointed to Times’ reporter Mike Bresnahan.

Bresnahan covers the Lakers for The Times, and he’s now giving us “Bresnahan’s Takes” between games, writing, “This has the feel of a Jazz victory.”

Bresnahan spends much of his time talking to the players, so where do you think he’s getting this feeling?

OK, so Kobe talked tough, but he also said, “A bunch of people in the crowd want to kill you.”

Tough to shoot while keeping an eye open for a killer, which might explain why he went one for 10 in the first half after Charles Barkley predicted on TV that Kobe would come out and silence the crowd.

Come on, John Stockton and Karl Malone weren’t out there. Mehmet Okur wasn’t even out there.

The Lakers had the best record on the road this season, so why leave the impression the fans in Utah can make a difference? Why let the Jazz believe they have a shot to win at home because they are now at home?

Is the same thing going to happen when the Lakers go to Portland or Houston, “hoping” to survive on the road, while knowing at worst -- they can roll at home?

They won’t be able to try that against Cleveland.

If you’re championship timber, as everyone in L.A. considers the Lakers, then it should all be about killer instinct rather than imaginary killers in the stands.

A 13-point lead against the No. 8-seeded team in the second half should be game over, and yet a fan holds up a sign that reads: “So simple a cave man can do it,” another, “Kobe minus Shaq equals no rings,” and the Lakers become unglued.

The public-address announcer screams, “we’re on national TV,” and since that doesn’t happen around here very often, everyone goes crazy.

These people aren’t even wearing T-shirts all the same color or shaking towels, and the Lakers -- win a close one, lose a close one -- should never be in this position against the likes of the Jazz.

Are we supposed to believe a fan sitting in a courtside seat wearing a chicken suit with a Lakers’ jersey cheering for the Jazz is now the sixth man for Utah and is going to turn the tide?

How many big crowds have these guys played in front of during their careers, and yet because these people are sitting close to the court, as TNT’s bluebird-dressed Craig Sager tells us, the Lakers are going to go weak in the legs?

If this is such an intimidating place, then why the full-page advertisement in the Salt Lake Tribune: “Great seats still available?”

Under the newspaper’s front page headline, “With hope fading, tickets and mementos go unsold,” the Salt Lake Tribune concluded, “many fans have all but given up on the team as it limps towards an inglorious end to what began as a promising season.”

The front-page story quoted the co-host of morning sports talk show here: “If we took 300 texts today about the Jazz, I’d say 75% were, ‘We have no chance, I can’t wait till the season’s over.’ Or, ‘Let’s move on, this dog is dead.’ ”

And yet the Lakers were concerned about playing here, Cleveland down the road and the Cavaliers losing only two games at home all season long.

“Daunting,” said Jackson, is the word he used in describing the Game 3 challenge against the last team to make the playoffs in the West.

“Disturbing” might be more an appropriate word to use knowing what is still to come, with the obvious lack of killer instinct on display here, and the fact the Lakers are going to have to win on the road where it’s really tough to play to become champions.

I WOULD imagine Jackson can’t wait to read Bresnahan’s Take in Saturday’s paper, so he gets an idea how Game 4 might go.

I SPENT the other day with 400 FBI agents, former agents, the FBI support staff, United States Attorney Tom O’Brien and Joe Mantegna, who plays an FBI profiler on Criminal Minds. I thought it would better prepare me to cover the Clippers.

I also spoke to the group, special agent Garland Schweickhardt making the invitation but he’s retired so what could the FBI do to him?

The featured speaker, however, was Mantegna because he plays an FBI agent on TV, and everyone had heard of him.

He explained why his character’s name is David Rossi, a tribute really to the police officer with the same name who was the first witness in the O.J. Simpson trial.

“He got beat up by the defense, but sat there in his dress blues, answering, ‘Yes sir,’ and “No sir.’ I was so impressed,” said Mantegna, explaining Rossi had been advised to wear a suit to court, but opted for the dress blues because he was proud of his LAPD service.

I believe I explained how the Grocery Store Bagger got his name.

SOMEBODY WANTS their money up front.

You might’ve noticed the advertisement on page four of the sports section in The Times: Lakers’ tickets go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. -- for a preseason game in Ontario on Oct. 20 against the Warriors.

Are the Dodgers sponsoring the game?

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t.j.simers@latimes.com