How do you turn dysfunction into function? How do you unbreak what is so obviously broken? Can this marriage be saved? Is hope not lost?
"Well, right now I don't think there's a challenge that's as imminent as this perhaps since the '95 season when we had to restructure and remake the Chicago Bulls," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said as his LA Lakers, trailing the Detroit Pistons 3-1 in the NBA Finals, prepared for Game 5.
Those preparations did not include practice. Jackson gave the Lakers a day off aside from their fly-by at The Palace to publicly address the dueling possibilities of having their season ending Tuesday in Detroit or continuing in Los Angeles where they'd attempt a comeback that would be unprecedented in NBA finals history.
Jackson wore denim Monday, while Kobe Bryant showed up in a green and tan sweat suit and a white visor. Dressed for summer vacation they were, although they insisted they aren't ready for it to commence.
"Understand that history is not necessarily on their side either," Bryant said. "There's both sides of the coin."
Indeed, no home team has ever won the middle three games in the finals since the NBA switched to a 2-3-2 format in 1985.
But no team devoid of superstars has won a championship since 1979, and the Pistons might just buck that trend. A 7-1 underdog when the series began, Detroit was installed as a 3-point favorite to finish off the Lakers in Game 5 and bring the title back to the Eastern Conference for the first time since 1998.
"I sense this team, and what they bring, would be a testimonial of how special our league is, because I think this team tries to play the right way and respects the game and respects one another," said Pistons coach Larry Brown, whose first NBA title would prevent Jackson, from breaking the record of nine coaching titles he shares with Red Auerbach.
Coaches often say that no game is as difficult as a close-out game. Desperation changes the equation for the team that's trailing, and overconfidence from the team that's winning can backfire.
In many ways, the Lakers are like a wounded animal begging to be put out of its misery, and the task confronting the Pistons is to finish the kill swiftly and deny Los Angeles even a glimmer of hope.
"It feels good, but it's really nothing to celebrate right now," Detroit's Chauncey Billups said. "This thing is far from over, and we understand that."
If not for Bryant's heroic 3-pointer to force overtime in Game 2, the series would already be over.
Instead, it's 3-1 -- a deficit Jackson has never faced as a coach in Chicago or Los Angeles.
He now needs to keep his team focused on the moment.
"I think it's the easiest thing to do," Jackson said, "because there's nothing else that sits beyond it, really, than just tomorrow's game.
Nothing stands in the way of reporters on the trail of a guaranteed victory -- not even when the player in question can't remember guaranteeing anything.
At the bottom of a column in a Los Angeles newspaper following the Lakers' 88-80 loss to the Detroit Pistons on Sunday, Bryant was quoted as saying: "I'm telling you right now, we'll win Tuesday."
The newspaper never claimed Bryant guaranteed a victory, as Rasheed Wallace boldly did before the Pistons' win in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. But that didn't stop reporters on Monday from peppering Bryant, his teammates and the Pistons with questions about a guarantee.
RSS