What’s Their Answer?

Derek Fisher’s alarm clock rang early Thursday morning, his fears buzzing insistently in his head, no place to push snooze, nothing to do but rise.

Shortly after 8 a.m., he and his brother slipped out of Fisher’s home, steered into the carpool lane, and headed for Staples Center.

Shortly after 9, they walked onto a vacant court and began taking jump shots.

Practice didn’t start for another hour. Fisher didn’t quit shooting until it did.

It wasn’t about numbers, not the zero points or zero rebounds that marked his first appearance as an NBA Finals starter.

It was, instead, about a letter.

“The man’s got a big X on his jersey,� said brother Duane Washington. “He knows it and I know it and everybody knows it.�

That X marked the spot of failure Wednesday, and Derek Fisher knows that too.

He is the Philadelphia 76ers’ target, and they nailed it.

He is what they consider the Lakers’ weakest link, and they haughtily dismissed him.

For weeks Fisher has been a freak. The 76ers seem intent on proving him a fluke.

Their 107-101 overtime victory in Game 1 was a convincing opening statement.

A city arrives at Game 2 tonight expecting a rebuttal.

“I wish I could have done more in the first game, and I take that personally,� Fisher said Thursday. “It’s a personal challenge now. A personal test.�

He had no answers in Game 1 for a 76er strategy that ironically insulted him by treating him with respect.

“We saw that [Fisher] had a lot of open shots in the earlier playoff games,� 76er guard Eric Snow said. “We tried not to give him those shots. We didn’t want to make it easy for him.�

Translated: In situations where previous opponents would sag off Fisher to double-team Shaquille O’Neal, the 76ers held their ground and challenged his fire.

Think you can make 51% of your three-pointers the way you did in the first three rounds?

Do it with this hand in your face.

Think you can continue that playoff performance of 38 assists to six turnovers?

Over our bleeding bodies.

Fisher figured this out with his eyes closed.

“We would send the ball into the lane and I would hear [Coach] Larry Brown yelling, ‘Stay at home, stay at home,’ � he recalled.

Home, of course, being Fisher’s newly built, mansion-size confidence.

Allen Iverson and Snow barged inside and spread out on the couch.

Fisher’s tight-jawed expression, that look of a leader that had become symbolic of the Lakers’ late-season run, melted faster than warm cheese on a sizzling steak.

The Lakers were 26-5 in games since once-injured Fisher showed up.

They are now 0-1 in games in which he did not.

“They came out with an intensity and toughness that we couldn’t match, that I couldn’t match,� Fisher said.

But one that, apparently, he could predict.

Fisher said he knew it would be like this. He said he had hardly slept or eaten for several days because of it.

“This was my second NBA Finals, but my first in this new role, and it was kind of overwhelming to consider,� he said. “There was a lot of pressure on me. I had a hard time dealing with it.�

Onlookers figured something was amiss when Fisher, with his brother grabbing rebounds, shot for more than 30 minutes after practice in El Segundo on Monday.

“We knew what this series was going to be about,� said Washington, who plays in Germany.

Then, after that practice, for perhaps the first time since he arrived here five years ago with Kobe Bryant, the Lakers’ most accessible and levelheaded spokesman cut short an interview and retreated to the locker room.

“I was thinking about what the 76ers were going to try to do,� he said. “I had to figure out what I was going to do about it.�

Two days into the series, he is still figuring.

It’s not about defense. He is not quick enough to consistently guard Iverson, but who is? The Lakers will spell him with Tyronn Lue and help him with Bryant for defense.

It’s not about scoring. He will never be a 28-point-per-game scorer, even if the San Antonio Spurs think otherwise.

It’s about leadership. It’s about late in the game. It’s about leveling the emotions of a high-strung team that looks to him for peace.

Fisher played only seven minutes in the second half and overtime Wednesday. He needs to contribute enough to triple that figure.

Fisher would not have taken that silly Lue layup. He might not, in the manner of Rick Fox, have thrown the ball out of bounds over O’Neal’s head.

And here’s guessing that maybe if he had been on the court in the final overtime moments, Robert Horry throws him the ball instead of running somebody over.

“We realized the Lakers haven’t really had any pressure, any wars, any battle scars, not like we have,� the 76ers’ Matt Geiger said. “That may have been the difference [Wednesday]. We didn’t get flustered. We didn’t second-guess ourselves. And maybe they did.�

And maybe an appearance by the new Derek Fisher could have changed that.

Of course, the 76ers are working under the assumption that he is still the old Derek Fisher, the one never quite good enough to start, that rare Jerry West mistake.

He’s not, is he?

We’ll find out. More important, he’ll find out.

“A personal challenge,� Fisher repeated.

Thursday afternoon, Dikembe Mutombo laughed that wonderful deep laugh and talked about how he was awakened that day with a phone call from Philadelphia native Bill Cosby.

Fisher gave that nails look and admitted he has been awakened by a dare.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected].

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Fisher Facts

Derek Fisher, a sparkplug for the Lakers throughout the Western Conference playoffs, didn’t perform up to expectations in the NBA Finals opener. How his Western Conference playoff averages compare to Game 1:

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Category West Finals Minutes 38.0 23 Field goals 60-120 0-4 Field-goal % .500 .000 Free throws 21-28 0-0 Free throw % .750 .000 3-Point shooting 25-49 0-1 3-Point % .510 .000 Assists 3.5 1 Turnovers 0.54 0

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