Lack of Effort Is a Poison Pill in a Brutal Loss

A bacon cheeseburger, please.

And a slice of cheesecake.

And hurry.

Ours is a town that today is desperately in need of something to make it double over like a shrimp.

Anything to avoid looking at Friday, a night when Staples Center was poisoned with careless, lazy, laughable Laker basketball.

With all due respect to Kobe Bryant’s earlier stomach problems, their 103-90 loss to the Sacramento Kings wasn’t only a game.

It was a two-and-a-half-hour purge.

Gone is the notion that the Lakers are the better team in these Western Conference finals.

On Friday, they were barely even a team.

Gone is the notion that the Lakers are destined to be playing for another month of Sundays.

If they don’t win this Sunday, their season is over.

Gone is the idea that when pressure pushes, their veterans know how to shove.

There were veterans out there Friday?

Shaquille O’Neal certainly didn’t act like one. According to Coach Phil Jackson, the center of the Laker attack began the game by asking the Lakers not to throw him the ball.

“He said, ‘Go away,’ and, ‘Let me get my feet into this game,’” Jackson said, noting that O’Neal wanted to establish his own rhythm in the wake of tight officiating. “I think that he was a little bit tentative perhaps about how the game was going to go for him inside, and what it was going to look like.”

By taking only four shots while his team was outscored, 32-15, in that first quarter, O’Neal established a rhythm indeed. Instead of the usual thump-thump-thump, though, it was ping-ping-ping.

The league’s heavyweights were featherweights. The two-time champions were tomato cans.

They avoided not only throwing the ball to O’Neal, but throwing themselves at the Kings.

Awful defense. Lousy loose-ball effort. Dumb shots. You folks driving those crowded freeways at 3 p.m. Friday, you weren’t the only ones who started the three-day weekend early.

“They just played harder than us,” Brian Shaw said. “They outhustled us. Our defense was not aggressive. We just didn’t play hard. You can live with other kinds of losses, but not that.”

On offense, they surely set the playoff record for airballs, and don’t ask, I stopped counting.

On defense, they certainly at least tied a playoff record for air between them and the shooter.

Derek Fisher couldn’t stay with Mike Bibby, hasn’t stayed with Mike Bibby.

Bryant, still obviously weakened from his apparent poisoning, was beaten to the basket by Doug Christie.

And Chris Webber was more alone than a Sacramento vegetarian.

“It looked like they had just about any shot they wanted in the book,” said Jackson.

All this, and the Lakers still amazingly had a chance to win the game, pulling to within 12 points with five minutes remaining.

But, after using three pointers to cut what was once a 27-point deficit, they forgot that they suddenly had time to move a little closer.

Lindsey Hunter threw up an awful, forced three-point attempt that was short.

Devean George threw up an awful, off-balance three-point attempt that also missed.

The relieved Kings answered with five consecutive points, and soon it was time for questions.

How could this happen?

How do the Lakers, tied 1-all with a difficult opponent, walk into Game 3 at home like it was recess?

How does a team that beat the Kings by 27 points in a similar series-tied playoff game here two years ago lose so much ground so fast?

Despite scoring 16 points in an adrenaline-nuts fourth quarter, Bryant is still clearly recovering from--or still suffering from--this week’s stomach illness.

Despite surviving earlier duels with Damon Stoudamire and Tony Parker, Fisher is wearing down against the emerging Bibby.

Despite finally moving well in Game 2, O’Neal is standing around again, either because of injury or perceived insults from the officials.

And despite making big plays in so many big playoff games the last two years, Rick Fox and Robert Horry--a combined four for 17 Friday--seem just plain tired.

The Lakers’ dominating opening-game victory in this series, clearly their best game of the playoffs, was thought to inspire them. Instead, it seems to have worn them out.

Lose Sunday, and they’ll probably have the rest of the summer to snooze.

“Now we’ll see what we’re made of,” Shaw said.

Hopefully it’s not the stuff of bacon cheeseburgers and cheesecake, but stranger things have happened.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com