Coach's Zen approach not helping Lakers
by Mark Kriegel
After the first game of the Western Conference semifinals, an eight-point Laker loss at the Staples Center, Phil Jackson came to the interview podium and addressed the media in his best, most reassuring baritone:
"It's not as bad as it seems," he insisted. "We're OK."
Then, after Game 4 -- another Laker loss that saw Jackson's team spot the Yao Ming-less Rockets a 29-point lead -- the coach declared the trip a success.
"We got home-court advantage back," he said, referring to the split in Houston. "That's what we came here to do."
I had to wonder if he was having one of those LSD flashbacks.
And on Thursday, after a first quarter in which Houston jumped out to a 17-1 lead, Jackson said: "I thought we played all right but for the shot selection."
Hold up. For the second time in four nights, his team had come out for a playoff game overconfident and under-prepared and it was the shot selection?
Finally, when the game was over and the series tied at three games apiece, Jackson said, somewhat mercifully, "I don't have a statement to make."
So allow me to make one. The front-running Lakers will probably win Game 7 at home. But even if they do, it won't change the facts. With two rounds now in evidence, the most talented team in the playoffs has also been the most poorly coached.
Phil Jackson has nine championship rings. He's co-written five books, a library of his opinions and reflections, from "Maverick" to "Sacred Hoops" to "The Last Season." He makes $10 million a year, more than any coach in any sport. But this great basketball man is having one lousy postseason.
It would be nice and convenient to say that the undermanned, if admirable, Houston Rockets have exposed some of his Zen camouflage. But that's not the case. It was the Celtics who laid bare Jackson's team almost a year ago in the finals. In losing the last game by 39, the Lakers entered these playoffs with the burden of proof squarely on their shoulders. Yet they still play as if they are owed something. That's coaching, or rather, lack thereof.
The NBA's most prolific author is down to cliches. "Nobody stepped up," he was heard to say late Thursday at the postgame presser televised on NBA TV.
Then there was this gem: "You know, we're playing with a couple guys who are injured."
He was speaking of Andrew Bynum, who made it back from a bad knee before the season ended, and Lamar Odom, who's playing with a bruised back. What he failed to mention, of course, were the Rockets injuries.
The comparison doesn't flatter Jackson's squad. It's difficult not to root for the Rockets. They lost Tracy McGrady during the season. They lost Dikembe Mutombo against Portland. Then Yao Ming went down in the third game of this series. Houston shouldn't have won another game. It's as simple as that. But now they've won two.
While the Lakers start their pair of 7-footers, the Rockets are now smaller than a lot of college teams. They started a 6-6 center, Chuck Hayes, who played more defense than all the Lakers not named Kobe Bryant put together. (By the way, this one isn't on Kobe, who knew the Lakers wouldn't win Game 6 without a marked increase in intensity). Second-year forward Carl Landry came off the bench for 15 points, which was not only more than Bynum and Odom combined, but more than Mr. All-NBA, Pau Gasol.
Good coaches do two things consistently well. They motivate their players, and they make adjustments. To this point in the postseason, Jackson has done neither. After Game 1, he said of his team's lackluster start: "I don't know if we can play much worse, to be honest with you."
Turns out they could play a lot worse, as evidenced by Thursday's first quarter. Speaking of adjustments, there's Aaron Brooks. He's a good player, but the Lakers are giving him the confidence to discover just how good he can be. Six games into this series, Los Angeles still has no answer for Brooks.
Then again, the Lakers have more problems than a slight, second-year point guard. For all their talk of championships, they can't recognize a simple mismatch. Worse, for all their size, they don't defend the lane.
So what of Game 7? Jackson was asked.
It's a home game, he said. "There's nothing to worry about."
Perhaps that's good Zen. But it's not good coaching.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/9576958/Coach's-Zen-approach-not-helping-Lakers
