Duncan Machine Runs Like Last Season

Tourists, trapped.

For the Lakers, the good news is they’re back among their loved ones. The bad news is they just logged 3,500 air miles and crossed two time zones twice in the last two days and they have to log another 3,500 and cross the same time zones two more times when they return Tuesday for Wednesday’s Game 3 in the SBC Center, where they’ve yet to defeat the Spurs in four playoff games.

Before Game 1, Laker Coach Phil Jackson said he wanted to knock the Spurs off their roll, but the Spurs are now up to 16 wins in a row, including five in the playoffs.

“You know what, that’s what this series is all about,” Tim Duncan said afterward. “There’s not a whole lot of secrets when you’re facing a team like L.A. that we’ve faced in years past. There’s not a whole lot of secrets about what we do and what they do.

“It’s about going out and executing and sticking to the game plan and believing in what you’re doing....

“It’s about going out there and kind of imposing our will and continue to push and believe in what you’re doing.”

Duncan was great, but what else was new? Duncan is almost always great, which is why he has won the last two most-valuable-player awards.

Of course, the Lakers know exactly what he does, not that they can stop him. Once they controlled the Spurs by running a second defender at Duncan late in games and making someone else beat them. Now with Tony Parker and the Spurs running a less predictable motion offense, the Lakers don’t have much control.

Duncan scored 30 points with 11 rebounds, making 13 of 18 shots, or 72%.

Of course, that was twice as good as he did at the free-throw line, where he made four of 11 (36%).

Because several of his field goals were delicate shots he banked in from 18 to 20 feet out with Lakers on him and because the free-throw line is only 15 feet away and no one can bother him, this is a puzzler.

“I don’t know,” said an exasperated Duncan. “I think I’ll move to the left and just try glassing in everything.”

Besides the actual significance, the game held symbolic meaning, at least according to Jackson, although it didn’t turn out the way he was hoping. It felt more like last spring’s series than the three high-scoring games the Lakers won against the Spurs before Christmas this season.

The Spurs are still the Spurs. As for the Lakers, we still don’t know who they are, and it’s getting late.

“People give coaches too much credit,” Spur Coach Gregg Popovich said before the series. “It’s not like we have these formulas to make guys get along. In many ways, it’s up to them. You just give them the space, create the environment, and it’s really up to them whether they’re going to get that done or not.

“You can’t manipulate peoples’ personalities to the degree that you make them have chemistry. What you have to depend on is that they have the character to see what that takes.

“And those guys do. And I think the situation and the task at hand is what pulls guys together. They’ve had injuries. Obviously, Kobe [Bryant] has had his distractions. Lately a little bit with Gary [Payton].

“But those things are all minor compared to their task at hand because when you have experienced pros that have a goal in mind, all that stuff is petty and absolutely irrelevant compared to that game that they’re about to play.

“They’ll be hell on wheels. ... They’ll be real tough to handle.”

The Lakers were tough, all right, but the Spurs handled them.

After a week off, these weren’t the same Spurs that swept Memphis, making 47.7% of their three-point shots. They went cold in the third quarter when the Lakers went on a 23-9 run to take a 56-50 lead, which made this a Laker opportunity ... that was lost.

“Just pressure, pressure, pressure,” said Bryant’s nemesis, Bruce Bowen. “Kobe was on a roll and my thing was, hey, I got to do a better job of trying to get a hand up on each and every shot, make some of those shots more difficult ...

“We came out and played with more aggression in the fourth quarter because we laid a fat egg in the third....

“I felt like they had a great quarter, but maybe they shot their bolt at that point.”

Shaquille O’Neal turned in a big effort, but with the Spurs fronting him and limiting his touches, he got off only 14 shots and was held to 19 points. Bryant carried the Lakers through the third period but in the fourth, they got too heavy.

Maybe the Lakers have another bolt at home they can bring back here for Game 2.

If not, they may soon be looking at more than three days off before their next game.