Lakers Fall Off an Edge

The NBA playoffs began on a Tuesday night in May, late as far as the postseason goes, but that’s when the Lakers began to pay for their ordinary side.

Twice champions and occasionally on a recognizable course for the third, they lost a game, their home-court advantage and an ounce of their invincibility to a league previously very willing to believe otherwise.

Hoisted by Tim Duncan, expected to become league most valuable player Thursday, the San Antonio Spurs were 88-85 winners at Staples Center before a crowd that did not--could not--sit for the final three dramatic and frantic minutes.

The best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals are tied at a game apiece, with Game 3 at San Antonio on Friday night, and Game 4 two days later. Duncan had 27 points, 17 rebounds and five blocked shots for the Spurs, who played again without their center, David Robinson.

“We’re right where we want to be,” Duncan said.

He kept the Spurs just ahead of the Lakers, who played at the end to reconcile three quarters of basketball that was sometimes average and often dismal. Kobe Bryant was called for traveling on the critical final possession, moments after Shaquille O’Neal stole the ball from Duncan on the wing, with 8.4 seconds remaining and the Spurs ahead, 87-85.

Bryant raced down the court and toward the rim. At what appeared to be an indecisive moment, Bryant lost the ball in the lane, landed, then batted it toward teammate Derek Fisher. The violation was called with 1.3 seconds left, and then Duncan made a free throw with two-tenths remaining.

Half-an-hour later, walking through his locker room, Bryant shouted, “The party just got started, fellas.”

The playoffs, the Laker postseason and their three-peat desires, everything they played toward for six months, it all felt fresh and vulnerable as they left the floor after their first home loss in 19 games, and their second playoff loss in 22.

“The series doesn’t really start until you lose one at home,” Bryant said later. “This is when the fun begins. It’s now competitive basketball. ... And now we’re going up to their home court, where they’re going to have 36,000 fans screaming and hollering. Duncan’s going to get his well-deserved MVP award. There’s going to be a lot of emotion in that game. I’m really looking forward to that. I’m sure my teammates are too.”

Bryant shook his head. He scored 26 points, 20 in the second half. O’Neal, pestered by a stitched and bandaged finger, missed nine of 16 shots and took only seven rebounds in 40 minutes, perhaps in part because Coach Phil Jackson ran him into a fourth foul before halftime.

The Lakers came from 10 points back to one point back in the late part of the fourth quarter, however, when things went wrong for the last time. O’Neal missed a jump hook, Bryant missed a three-pointer and Fisher, after a strong offensive rebound, missed a free throw, and the Spurs won despite scoring three points in the final 6:23.

“We almost got away with it again,” said Bryant, who played with a bruise below his right knee. “Almost got away with it.”

Game 2 had all of the old issues. The early deficits, the offensive rebounds allowed, the spotty defense. What was new was the loss, the inability to do something remarkable at the end, the Robert Horry three-pointer, the Bryant jumper, the O’Neal alley-oop.

“Everything’s all right, everything’s cool,” O’Neal said on a slow walk to his car.

Instead, the Spurs did just enough right and held just enough of a lead that reached 21 points late in the first half after a staggering 41-14 run. Antonio Daniels came off the bench and scored 14 points in 20 minutes. Bruce Bowen made three of four three-pointers. Malik Rose and Duncan combined for 10 fourth-quarter rebounds, six on the offensive side.

So, when the Lakers outscored the Spurs, 45-32, in the second half, it was not quite enough.

“We don’t have a choice now,” Bryant said. “We have to improve. We have to go up to San Antonio now and play well in Game 3. I, for one, am looking forward to that.”

The Lakers staggered to halftime down by 16 points and, more critically, with O’Neal lugging the four personal fouls.

He was assessed two fouls in a 10.5-second span with less than a minute remaining in the second quarter, the second on the offensive end, where he ducked his shoulder and rammed hard into Duncan’s chest.

That he was in the game in such a precarious state was Jackson’s decision. Apparently, Jackson trusted that O’Neal would avoid that obvious contact. Only Monday he had warned of O’Neal’s vulnerability there, however, saying, “Shaq usually saves his fouls for the offensive end. That’s where he’s got to be careful.”

Still, the Lakers started the third quarter on a 15-3 run, to come within 59-55, and the crowd believed it, and the Spurs looked as if they might too.

At which point, the Spurs stopped missing and the Lakers stopped making, and the Spurs’ lead was 16 again, at 73-57.

Asked why he allowed O’Neal to play on at the end of the second quarter, Jackson joked that he was testing the referees, seeing if they would continue to call an uneven game against O’Neal.

Sure enough, he said, “They called Duncan on that flop.”