<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
It’s becoming easier and easier to understand why everyone who doesn’t love the Lakers hates them. <\/span>In a roomful of sympathetic Lakers fans, while ignoring my filial Mother’s Day duties, I watched as the Lakers undertook the difficult duty of somehow embarrassing the garish colors of purple and gold. <\/span>Before we start getting angry emails from Rockets fans, let me acknowledge: yes, Houston did earn it. <\/span>This was in no way an assertion of that old Kobe\/Shaq era excuse, that the Lakers were the only team capable of beating themselves. <\/span>In front of a home crowd, and with Yao on the sideline, the Rockets found their fire, and it was, honestly, something to behold.<\/p>\n But it doesn’t excuse the Lakers’ performance. <\/span>Just two days after a gutty win while missing Derek Fisher, the Lakers seemed to have no recollection of what it felt like to want <\/i>a game. <\/span>They didn’t defend the perimeter, they didn’t dive for balls (and when Trevor Ariza did, spritely Aaron Brooks still managed to out-physical him)…they didn’t even bother to look upset at themselves for failing to do these things. <\/span>They just plugged along, as Kobe Bryant looked angrily at his teammates, and they looked beseechingly at him.<\/span><\/p>\n Either by Kobe’s personality, or by the rest of the team’s, it’s become obvious that having a superstar on the team is sometimes almost a liability for this team. <\/span>When the going gets tough, they aren’t all putting in their best effort, knowing that Bryant has the ability to put them over the top. <\/span>They’re just standing around, like YMCA players waiting for their best guard to take over—Byron Ferguson, my YMCA coach (and now coach of the Wilson Bruins girls’ basketball team, just cringed—he would never have let us get away with how the Lakers played today).<\/p>\n The complacency, the sense that getting walloped is okay, wasn’t just between the lines, though—Phil Jackson’s normally savvy “let them play through it” strategy instead today gave new meaning to the term laissez-faire. <\/span>He watched the Rockets build a huge first-quarter lead they’d never relinquish with a bemused countenance.<\/p>\n Basketball fans—both those Lakers fans in the room with me and those hoping for some good television in this series—have to be hoping that L.A. took something away from this game. <\/span>Maybe a lesson about who should be in the game, and who can’t be trusted—Sasha Vujacic, for all his flaws, went after it today. <\/span>Shannon Brown, with his lack of ability, did the same. <\/span>Luke Walton, who normally annoys me to no end, was also impressive—the combined +\/- of those three players was +30, though they at least managed to show some effort in garbage time. <\/span>Derek Fisher and Lamar Odom were both -22, for a combined four points on ten shots—and they both made Andrew Bynum look like Lebron James (a superstar who has kept his team’s intensity at a level the Lakers wouldn’t even recognize).<\/p>\n In the end, you have to believe what Pau Gasol said in his pregame interview—this team has the tools. <\/span>It has the players and it has the coaches—all they need is to want it. <\/span>All they need is desire. <\/span>Hopefully when they go back home, they’ll find it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Lakers’ sad Sunday performance makes a viewer wonder whether or not they have what it takes to win a 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