Let's Call It a Mismatch, Move On to the Breakup

I'm thinking, only one loss from extinction.

The Lakers are thinking, last gasp for the dynasty.

I'm thinking, first step toward demolition.

The Lakers are thinking, if they don't win tonight's Game 4 Finals bout against the Detroit Pistons, they are suddenly faced with the certain summer dismantling of a once-invincible force.

I'm thinking, it's about time.

Untouched by controversy, unfazed by dissension, the Lakers have finally been cornered by integrity, the floor-burned Pistons requiring only a week to reveal what we've all suspected for months.

This is one messed-up team.

The Lakers don't need a basketball, but a wrecking ball.

If they don't win the championship, they need to be knocked down like an aging corner hotel that once housed presidents but now is home to broken windows and lost souls.

If they do win the championship, allow Kobe Bryant to wag his finger, and Shaquille O'Neal to rip his critics, and Phil Jackson to light his exploding-in-Red-Auerbach's-face cigar.

Then level them.

Tonight's last hurrah is for a team that has lost its voice.

Tonight's last stand is about a team that has spent most of the last week on its back.

Against a precise coach whose players complement each other like the pieces inside a watch, the Lakers are countering with all the sophistication of an erratic clock radio.

They blare at the wrong times. They blink for no reason.

For only 10.9 seconds of regulation and five minutes of overtime have they gotten it right.

Being the Lakers, they may still win this series.

But being realists, they will have no idea why.

When asked Saturday whether the parts on this Laker team simply don't fit together as well as the parts of previous Laker teams, Jackson smiled.

"I decline to answer that question on the grounds I may incriminate myself," the coach said.

When asked the same thing, Rick Fox did not smile.

"I don't know how many times Phil is going to have to step in that huddle during timeouts and scream, 'Execute!' " Fox said.

Horace Grant didn't even need to be asked.

"We're not on the same page as teams in the past," he said. "Even when we were in trouble in the past, the focus was there. The focus is not there right now."

This, after 102 games.