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SAN ANTONIO
VS.
LOS ANGELES
PHILADELPHIA
VS.
MILWAUKEE
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Playoff layoff faze the Lakers? Think again
By Marc Stein
Special to ESPN.com
Nine days without a single game, sayeth Conventional Wisdom, is about seven days too many for even the great Lakers.
Of course, that's assuming these guys are still capable of an off game here and there.
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Well rested
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The Lakers will have nine days off before the start of the Finals. During the regular season, their winning percentage increased the more rest they had:
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Between
games
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Regular
season
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Playoffs
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0 days off
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10-9
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0-0
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1 day off
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32-14
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4-0
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2 days off
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8-2
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2-0
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3 days off
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3-1
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2-0
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4 days off
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1-0
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1-0
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5 days off
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1-0
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1-0
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6 days off
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0-0
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1-0
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Since we can't remember the last one of those, it's probably better to just call them rest days and nit-pick about something else. Rational thought doesn't really apply to Phil Jackson's Zen men, anyway.
Because we've never seen anything like this. Better teams, yes, but nary a more sweepy bunch. Can't recall the last time one roster contained the league's two best players. Can't name another group that could leave three 50-win teams looking so lotteryesque. They're making it difficult to identify a degree of difficulty.
Easy is the word. It all seems simple. The Lakers haven't lost a game since the Dodgers were in Vero Beach. No one we can find expects them to lose another game before Christmas.
Rust is going to rattle them? Puh-lease. We know they can go from 11-0 to Fifteen-And-Oh because the Lakers have already achieved the impossible. They've made it comfortable for Jerry West to come to their games again.
West is the man who assembled this Lakers cast with the suddenly overflowing talent and bubbling chemistry. In one wonderfully productive summer, the Olympic summer of 1996, West scored a rather golden haul. Guys named Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher.
West, though, is also the man who nonetheless became Jerry Stressed, so anguished by Shaq and Kobe's three playoff flameouts that preceded the present-day stroll on Easy Street. Citing poor health, West resigned shortly after last June's championship. A title run, incidentally, that saw West attend precisely zero playoff games. On the night L.A. finally clinched the crown, putting away the Pacers at home, West was on the road ... in his car ... driving around Bel Air because he couldn't bear to watch.
In retirement, West attended only two regular-season games, with this fitful season ranking as the most stressful yet in the Shakobe Era. Because, before a giddy O'Neal began threatening to name his next child Shakobe -- true story, if you haven't heard -- he asked West's successor, Mitch Kupchak, to trade him away from No. 8. Kobe himself also volunteered to relocate once or twice.
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Finals schedule
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All times ET
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Game 1: June 6 at LA, 9 p.m.
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Game 2: June 8 at LA, 9 p.m.
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Game 3: June 10 at East, 7:30 p.m.
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Game 4: June 13 at East, 9 p.m.
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Game 5*: June 15 at East, 9 p.m.
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Game 6*: June 18 at LA, 9 p.m.
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Game 7*: June 20 at LA, 9 p.m.
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* - if necessary
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So you know things have turned rather swimmingly in Lakerdom for West to suddenly show for Games 3 and 4 against the Spurs. Sources report that he was actually seen sitting calmly (in a chair!) as the soap-opera survivors rolled to sweep-sealing victories of 39 and 29 points.
"After all the things that have happened, and the way we're rolling now, I know it looks like this was the plan all along," Fisher said.
"It wasn't."
It wasn't West's blueprint, certainly, but overcoming all the head-butting has the Lakers quite confident that they can survive the extended inactivity. They're unconventional, after all. They learn their lessons.
Lakers Of Old: Sweep through the first three playoff rounds in 1989, then head for Santa Barbara at the behest of Pat Riley. Ensuing round of Camp Riley two-a-days blows out Byron Scott's hamstring. When Magic Johnson's goes next, Lakers are toasted by Detroit, 4-nil.
New, Great Lakers: Sweep through the first three playoff rounds, then take Monday and Wednesday off. Plans for a Sunday day of rest are also in the works.
"It gives me a chance to relax, get some rest, go bowling with the kids, do family stuff," O'Neal revealed.
No, the Big Rust doesn't sound too worried, does he? Dikembe Mutombo theoretically poses a problem in the Finals because he can guard Shaq straight up, thereby enabling the other Sixers to focus on Kobe. Theoretically. In reality, can Mutombo alone do what Tim Duncan and David Robinson couldn't achieve in tandem?
Sorry. Shaq might be the biggest learner on the team. He clings to memories of 1995, when the Orlando Magic got to the Finals by beating Michael Jordan's Bulls -- with an asterisk, mind you, because MJ had only just unretired from baseball. Regardless, Shaq likes to tell the story about how the Magic, with just three days off before the title round, got so full of themselves that they forget about the Houston Rockets. The resulting 4-nil spanking was just one of the five playoff sweeps Shaq scooped up in his first six pro seasons.
So the jokes will keep coming, but don't underestimate Shaq's serious side. He'll take care of that twisted ankle and be ready to resume this fun, new life as the Big Mine Sweeper, rather than the sweepee.
We're also somewhat reluctant to discount the Sixers, because they're clearly the NBA's resilience champions -- and writing them off all season has only made us look more stupid than usual. Yet, against the Lakers, it's impossible to envision Philly winning more than a game, in any scenario. LA, don't forget, has already weathered six days between games before polishing off the Kings, and a five-day hiatus before brooming the Spurs back to Softville.
Conventional Wisdom, again, sayeth that the Lakers will start out shaky when they finally get around to Wednesday's Game 1. We sayeth: What's a few extra nights of bowling with the fellas?
"I've seen teams in the past bothered by [layoffs]," Zen Master Jackson shared. "This team, this year, hasn't been affected by them."
Unconventional, they are. Not your father's Lakers and, now, not even the West you remember. Look out East ? however many days away those Finals are.
Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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MARC STEIN ARCHIVE
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