Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success (21 page)

What worried me about this team was the ghosts of playoffs past. The players had a tendency to lose patience and panic when the pressure started building and they couldn’t get by on talent alone. As one Buddhist teacher I know put it, they tended to put a head on top of a head when the game started going into a nosedive. In other words, they let their fear or anger persist and steal their focus from the task at hand.

With the Lakers I found that I had to be a model of calmness and patience, much more so than with the Bulls. I had to demonstrate that the key to inner peace is trusting in the essential interconnectedness of all things. One breath, one mind. That’s what gives you strength and energy in the midst of chaos.

—

The first round of the playoffs against Sacramento was an enlightening experience. The Kings had a fast, explosive young team with a deft passing attack that was hard to stop when the players were in full motion. The player I worried about most was Chris Webber, who was too strong and quick for our power forward duo of A.C. Green and Robert Horry. That meant he could break free and help out Vlade Divac on Shaq. I was also impressed with the Kings’ bench, led by Predrag Stojakovic, a chilling outside shooter. Our best bet, I figured, was to slow the pace down and neutralize the Kings’ running game.

That worked in the first two games, which we won handily, but when the five-game series moved to Sacramento’s noisy bandbox stadium, the Kings capitalized on some generous officiating and Shaq’s lackluster defense to pull the series even, 2–2. After the third game a Sacramento reporter asked me if these were the most energetic fans I’d ever seen, and I told him no. “I coached basketball in Puerto Rico, where if you won on a visiting floor, your tires were slashed and you might be chased out of town with rocks breaking the windows of your car.” But here, I said, “We’re talking about semi-civilized in Sacramento. These people are just maybe redneck in some form or fashion.” I meant it tongue in cheek, but the remark launched a backlash in the state’s capital that haunted us for years.

The final must-win game in the Staples Center was a trial by fire for the young Lakers. “If you don’t win this one,” I told the players, “then you don’t deserve to move into the next round. You’ve got to play to win, not play to avoid losing.” And they rose to the occasion. The refs finally started calling Webber for playing a zonelike defense on Shaq, which freed the big man to take over the game, hitting 7 of his first 8 field-goal attempts and finishing with 32 points and 18 rebounds, as we went on to win, 113–86. “We knew if we didn’t play our A game, we’d make history tonight,” Shaq said. “And we didn’t want to make that kind of history.”

In the next series we jumped to a relatively easy 3–0 lead over Phoenix, but we fell apart in game 4, allowing the Suns to score an embarrassing 71 points in the first half.

During halftime I didn’t talk to the players at first; I let them sulk and bicker among themselves until about two minutes before game time. Then I stormed into the locker room and hurled a bottle of Gaterlode against the wall to get their attention. I rarely throw tirades, but they needed to hear how I felt about their inconsistency and lack of discipline at a time when they couldn’t afford to get sloppy. After the game, which we lost 117–98, I made a more thoughtful speech. “You guys are a little tired of each other and don’t want to work together as a cohesive unit,” I said. “All of this is understandable at this stage of a long season. To win a championship, however, you’ve got to find a way to match each other’s energy and to match your opponent’s energy. You’ve just got to figure out what it takes to win night after night. Let’s learn from this game and don’t let it happen again.” Two nights later the Suns couldn’t make anything work, and we breezed to victory, 87–65.

I knew from the start that our opponents in the Western Conference finals—the Portland Trail Blazers—were going to be the team to beat in the playoffs. They had the most expensive roster in the league ($73.9 million), including center Arvydas Sabonis (bigger than Shaq at seven feet three inches and 292 pounds), fiery power forward Rasheed Wallace, left-handed point guard Damon Stoudamire, versatile spot shooter Steve Smith, and Pippen, who could do everything. They also had a dynamic bench, featuring guards Bonzi Wells and Greg Anthony, and six-ten swing man Detlef Schrempf. To tweak them, I dubbed the Blazers “the best team money can buy.”

The player I was worried about, of course, was Scottie. He had a Ph.D. in the triangle offense and knew every possible way to disrupt it. To keep Scottie from harassing our guards, we put six-nine Horry in the backcourt and had Harper rove around the top of the floor as a small forward. We also tried using Kobe as a traditional point guard so we could exploit the mismatch between our big guards and Portland’s five-ten Stoudamire. Both strategies worked better than expected. Our biggest advantage, though, was at center. Despite his height, Sabonis wasn’t mobile enough to contain Shaq, so the Blazers often triple-teamed him and resorted to a hack-a-Shaq strategy late in games. The Blazers might be bigger and more athletic than us, said Kobe, but “Shaq will match up with about four of them on his own.”

The first game was a walk. Our bench had a big second quarter and Shaq erupted for 41 points as we sailed to a 109–94 victory. But in game 2 Scottie started to drive on Glen Rice and penetrate our defense, racking up 17 points in the first half to lead the Blazers to a double-digit lead before he fell and dislocated two fingers. Miraculously, we were down by only three at halftime, but then our offense completely imploded in the third quarter, scoring only 8 points, a franchise low in the playoffs. This game was a warning bell for me. I tried to let the players figure out on their own how to find their inner resolve and reverse the collapse, but it didn’t happen. One thing I did know, however, was that we had to stop Scottie’s free-ranging attack. After the game I told Kobe that he would be covering Scottie.

We won the next two games in Portland to take a 3–1 lead in the series. The first was an inspiring come-from-behind victory featuring a go-ahead jumper by Harper with 29.9 seconds left. The highlight of the second win was Shaq’s perfect nine-for-nine performance on the line, the best he’d ever done in the playoffs. But after that, when dreams of rings started floating in everyone’s head, the Blazers scorched us in back-to-back games to tie the series, 3–3.

Nothing was working. We were down by 15 points at the half in game 6 and Fox went into a rage. “Here we go again,” he said, referring to the Lakers’ history of collapsing during the playoffs. “Everybody’s got a blank look on his face. So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to let the referees dictate the terms of the game? Are we going to be passive and get blown out again? Or are we going to stand up on our own feet? Are we going to provide support for each other?”

Tex said to me, “You’d better tell him to shut up.”

“No,” I replied. “Somebody’s got to say these things”—meaning a player on the team and not the coach.

Did I tell you how much I dislike seventh games? Well, this one was especially challenging. The Blazers were on a roll, and we were struggling to contain them. Then in the third period, they took off, scoring 18 points on seven possessions, and suddenly we were down 16 and floundering. To be honest, I thought we were dead in the water. So I called time-out and tried to inject some life into our dazed and confused troops.

Then something beautiful happened: The team found itself. The Blazers were killing us with high screen-rolls because Shaq was averse to coming out of his comfort zone and getting caught chasing after players such as Stoudamire or Smith. During moments like this, Shaq was in danger of falling into a downward spiral of self-defeat, which had crippled him during big games in the past. The perfect example of putting a head on top of a head. So I told him, in no uncertain terms, that this was his moment. He needed to move out of the lane and start breaking down the screen-rolls no matter what. He nodded in agreement.

The other thing we needed to do was to stop trying to feed the ball to Shaq, who was being swarmed to death and had only 2 field goals in the first three quarters. We had a lot of players open, and the Blazers were daring us to make the shots they were giving us.

“Forget about Shaq,” I said. “There are four guys around him. Shoot the shot, just shoot it.”

The attack came from all angles. Brian Shaw, who was subbing for Harper, took off, hitting some key three-pointers, setting up Shaq for a big score, and battling Brian Grant for an important rebound. Kobe starting clicking on some plays we orchestrated for him. And our defense, led by a newly emboldened Shaq, shut down the Blazers’ top shooters. During one stretch, the Lakers outscored the Blazers 25–4.

Then, with less than a minute left and the Lakers up by four, Kobe drove toward the basket and surprised everyone by lofting a beautiful pass to Shaq two feet above the rim, which he grabbed and dunked. It was a gratifying moment to see these two men come together for a perfectly coordinated play that put the game out of reach. That pass symbolized how far Kobe and Shaq had progressed since that unsettling team meeting during the winter when their egos collided. After that they had worked out a mutually agreeable way to collaborate that culminated in this dramatic closeout shot. That moment was an important turning point for our new team.

—

The championship finals against the Indiana Pacers would not be as transformative as our battle with the Trail Blazers. But it had its own dangers. The Pacers were the best shooting team in the league and had a lot of ways to make our lives difficult.

Their biggest threat, of course, was shooting guard Reggie Miller, known for his uncanny ability to weave through picks and hit game-winning jumpers. But they also had small forward Jalen Rose, a one-on-one artist; center Rik Smits, an impressive jump shooter; point guard Mark Jackson, a strong post-up player; versatile power forwards Dale Davis and Austin Croshere; and a strong bench that included three-point whiz Sam Perkins and superquick guard Travis Best. In addition, Indiana had one of the best coaching staffs in the game, with Dick Harter, a defensive guru, Rick Carlisle, the offensive coordinator, and Larry Bird, the head coach.

We got off to a good start. In game 1, in L.A., Shaq overwhelmed the Pacers with 43 points and 19 rebounds and Miller went flat, hitting only 1 of 16 shots. The game was decided early. Then two days later we had a replay, beating the Pacers with another Shaq virtuoso performance and 21-point nights for both Rice and Harper. The downside: Kobe sprained his ankle in the first quarter, and it looked as if he might have to miss the next game too.

Indiana bounced back and won game 3 in Indianapolis. But that wasn’t the big story. Rice’s wife, Christina, complained to reporters after the game that I was short-timing Glen, and the media jumped all over it. She told
Los Angeles Times
columnist Bill Plaschke, “If it was me, I would have already been Latrell Sprewell II” (referring to then-Warriors star Latrell Sprewell’s choking attack on his coach P.J. Carlesimo). This was an outrageous comment, but Glen and I had already talked about restricting his playing time in certain situations, and he was on board. He handled the media masterfully, supporting his wife but not publicly defending her charges.

Besides, I had something more immediate to worry about: Kobe’s ankle. Before the start of game 3, Kobe pleaded with me to put him in the game, even though his ankle was killing him. But after watching him painfully stand up on his toes in the hallway outside our locker room, I decided it was too risky to chance it and had him sit this one out.

Kobe was still in a great deal of pain three nights later, for game 4, but he insisted he could play through it, and it turned out to be his big night. The game was tight most of the way and went into overtime, but Shaq fouled out in the first minute of OT, and Kobe took over, hitting 8 of our 16 points to set up a 120–118 win. Afterward Shaq rushed on court and hugged the man he was now calling his “big little brother.”

I was impressed with Kobe. This was the first time I saw how impervious he was to excruciating pain. He wasn’t going to let anything stop him. That night he reminded me of Michael Jordan.

Then, true to form, we dropped the next game in dramatic fashion, losing by 33 points, the worst defeat of the season. The game was such an all-around fiasco, it made me question whether this team had the right stuff to win a championship. But Fox put a more optimistic spin on the game, saying, “It makes snapping back a whole lot of fun when you take a beating like we did today.”

After reviewing the game tapes, we decided to change some of our defensive assignments, putting Harper on Miller, Kobe on Jackson, and Rice on Rose. We also moved A.C. over to front Smits because Rik had trouble catching passes that were lobbed over a defender’s head. As expected, Smits had a bad game, hitting one for eight from the field. But the rest of the team was shooting in the Staples Center as if they were still playing at home. It wasn’t until the fourth period—with the Pacers ahead 84–79—that the game started to turn.

One of our best moves was a play we called the “fist chest,” which involved having two players do a screen-roll on the wing while another filled the corner. The beauty of the play was that it drew three Pacers away from the lane to cover the screen-roll and the corner shooter. That forced them to either cover Shaq one on one (a big mistake) or leave the corner shooter with a wide-open three (even worse).

We ran the fist chest six times in the fourth period, and it helped open up the floor for us. We also had success with a number of other plays, including one we dubbed the “Shaw-Shaq redemption,” featuring Brian Shaw feeding Shaq with a lob pass high on the backboard. Kobe also came alive, hitting shots, pulling down rebounds, and most of all feeding Shaq, as we went on a 15–4 run at the start of the period to take the lead.

We were up 110–103 with 3:02 left when Bird finally resorted to the hack-a-Shaq strategy. In the next twenty-one seconds, they fouled Shaq twice, and he hit only one of his four free throws. So I decided to pull him out until the two-minute mark, when the Pacers would be hit with a technical if they deliberately fouled him. In the meantime, though, Indiana kept clawing back and narrowed the lead to 110–109 with 1:32 remaining.