Laker Fans Should Buckle Up for Ride Ahead

By J.A. Adande

April 22, 2002 12 AM PT

Find the most comfortable seat in the house. Make sure the refrigerator is stocked. Keep the ibuprofen handy. If you want something scenic, go take a walk on the beach.

This Laker playoff run is going to be a lot like Sunday’s 95-87 victory over Portland in Game 1. Long and laborious. Grinding. Not pretty.

“It may be that way this year,” Rick Fox said. “We may not have the sort of dominant outcome that people are used to seeing.

“As long as we’re winning, we can discuss later how aesthetically pleasing to the eye it is.”

As one indication of how tough this is going to be, I’ve gone to the Rick Fox card after only one game. Fox quotes are the white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake of the Laker locker room: always just as good as you expect, but you can’t have it too much. So normally I try to put him off for stretches, or avoid him for weeks at a time.

Well, the diet is officially off.

So is any pretense of balance in the Laker attack, which is a reason that their title defense will be so difficult.

The Lakers seem more reliant on Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant than ever. They made seven of the team’s eight field goals in the first quarter, 11 of the 15 in the first half and 20 of 32 for the game.

The only other Laker to reach double figures in scoring was Derek Fisher, and he didn’t get there until he made a three-pointer with 3:44 left in the fourth quarter.

Good help is going to be hard to find. And don’t expect it to come from some unexpected source.

If Game 1 was any indication, Phil Jackson is keeping his rotation tighter than a Britney Spears outfit. He straight-up said before the game that he is “not very comfortable” with using Mark Madsen and Slava Medvedenko at power forward. Lindsey Hunter made a token appearance and we might not see Mitch Richmond again until the victory parade.

Not that the parade is a sure thing. In fact, here’s the only thing you can guarantee: the Lakers won’t sweep through the Western Conference again.

We should get a good chance to see the comparison between then and now, because it’s likely that the Lakers, if they get far enough, will face the same three opponents: Portland, San Antonio and Sacramento.

Portland already has closed the gap a little bit. The Trail Blazers weren’t within 13 points of the Lakers at the end of any playoff game last season. Now they seem ready to hang in and put up a fight, as opposed to last year’s debacle when they melted down into a towel-tossing, referee-attacking mess that posed a threat only to themselves.

“It’s going to be one of those series where we’re going to have to read,” Jackson said.

As opposed to what, just looking at the pictures?

Yes, this is going to take some effort, both playing and watching. It will require stamina. Jackson went on to talk about stuff like “specials,” “automatics” and “pressure releases,” but the key word in his descent into basketball jargon was “survive.”

That probably will be the theme of these playoffs, and that’s what the Lakers did Sunday.

With the Trail Blazers surrounding O’Neal throughout the first half and Bryant misfiring on all six shots in the second quarter, it was a two-point game at halftime.

But eventually they found a way to get the ball to O’Neal, who worked his way through the double- and triple-teams to score 25 of his toughest points of the season.

Bryant--who had to shoot out of necessity because O’Neal was closed off for so long--started driving through the lane and managed to connect on 10 of his 28 (!) shots and 12 of 13 free throws to score 34 points.

Fisher grabbed six rebounds, Robert Horry did a lot of Robert Horry stuff and the Lakers did what they always seem to do ... eventually, when they really set their minds to it. But they couldn’t feel comfortable until the final two minutes.

“The second half is indicative of the way this team wins championships,” Portland Coach Maurice Cheeks said.

It’s going to take lots of little stuff, lots of patience and probably a few setbacks for them to get their third. They aren’t dominating. They’re not on a roll. No one’s afraid of them.

“This is going to be a stressful run,” Fox said. “It’s good to know we’ve been under stress before and know how to handle it.”

It’s even better for them to know they have Shaq and Kobe.

So even after what O’Neal called “kind of a dismal season,” the Lakers are the team that will either win the championship or have to be defeated by the team that does.

“They’re at the top and they deserve to have some arrogance,” Portland forward Scottie Pippen said.

Pippen knows a thing or two about three-peating. In Chicago, he and Michael Jordan were the only players to do it twice, from 1991-93 and again from 1996-98. Is the third one the toughest?

“They’re all hard,” Pippen said. “You can’t compare them. Every year is a different year, it’s a different challenge. It’s whether or not they’re motivated and up for the challenge.”

Motivation was a missing element most of the season for the Lakers. Maybe it has returned now that the playoffs are back.

“It is a greater challenge, which brings greater excitement.... Not only do we have to defend our championships, but we have a lot to prove to a lot of people that have second-guessed us,” Fox said.

So get ready for even more challenges, more close games ... and more Rick Fox quotes.

J.A. Adande can be reached at: [email protected]