3.10.2019

Zen Mistress: This Isn't Over

June 2008

Zen Mistress: This Isn't Over

LOS ANGELES - This time, there was no whining, no complaining, no making of excuses.

In the aftermath of a Game 4 implosion last night at Staples Center, the Los Angeles Lakers looked and sounded like a beaten team.



``We just wet the bed,'' said edgy and bitter Lakers guard Kobe Bryant. ``A nice big one, too. One of those you have to put a towel over.''

Said Lakers coach Phil Jackson when asked about his team's bleak outlook: ``It's not over. This is not over. The series is not over.''

Just wondering: Exactly whom was he trying to convince?

Oh, the Lakers can say all the right things for the next few days, but we all know how this works. Without conviction, words are hollow. The Lakers had a 24-point second-quarter lead and were still up by 20 in the third quarter, and then they took the proverbial eye off the ball.

Just like that, a potential 2-2 deadlock in the NBA Finals became a 3-1 Celtics advantage thanks to a 97-91 victory, and both Jackson and Bryant have been around long enough to understand the impact.

Game 5 is on Sunday in Los Angeles. If necessary, Games 6 and 7 are scheduled in Boston next week.

The Lakers have to win them all.

Bets, anyone?

``We missed an opportunity. It's a huge loss, no doubt about it,'' said a candid Bryant. ``We've just got to get back to work. Right now, I think it's important for everybody to be a little disappointed and a little (ticked) off.''

In Boston, naturally, Game 4 of the 2008 Finals is being celebrated as a historic comeback. In Los Angeles, it will go down as a collapse of Schiraldian proportions. The Lakers have the reigning Most Valuable Player in Bryant and a roundball Aristotle as a head coach. Neither could save them in a contest the Lakers absolutely, positively had to win.

Even Jackson all but admitted that he had no answers for the third-quarter Celtics lineup that featured snipers Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Eddie House and James Posey.

``Yes, well, that changed the course of the game obviously,'' Jackson said. ``Time out called, (Kendrick) Perkins is injured, we're up by 20 points. They put in Posey and House and they spread the lineup and run screen rolls, put some pressure on us to have to match up. (And) they have 3-pointers available and they hit shots.''

The Lakers?

They hit the deck.

Independent of any New England-area biases, let's be honest here. These Finals haven't exactly done much for the Lakers image. After his team looked uninspired and disinterested for much of Game 2, Jackson griped about the officiating. He kept right on griping up to Game 3, when the Lakers got all the calls and further armed longstanding NBA conspiracy theorists.

After that game, Bryant came out and cracked about his 11-for-18 effort from the free throw line, saying he felt as if he were in foreign territory, as though he had been dropped into Shanghai without a translator or dictionary.

The line got a few laughs, but the underlying message was that the referees were to blame for the 2-0 deficit Los Angeles faced coming home in the Finals.

Last night, the Lakers had no one else to blame. Maybe that is why they did not even try.

Despite having played the entire postseason without a home loss and leading Game 4 of the Finals by 24 points, the Lakers spit the bit, dropped the ball, soiled their shorts. The Lakers disintegrated as much as the Celtics pulled together, because no historic comeback could possibly take place without a complementary bed-wetting.

Are the Lakers done? Technically, no.

But for a team that was seen as a prohibitive favorite entering these Finals, the Lakers, their star player and coach now appear on the verge of further validating their critics.

Jackson still hasn't won a championship without Michael Jordan or Shaquille O'Neal, and Bryant, too, runs the distance only on Diesel.

``A lot of wine, a lot of beer, a couple of shots, maybe about 20 of 'em and get back to work,'' said Bryant. ``Nothing you can do.''

Going forward, perhaps, he may be right.

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