With time running out on their season, the Lakers assembled for practice Monday morning and experienced a much shorter session than expected.
Phil Jackson gathered the team in the video room, showed a brief clip from the movie "Hustle & Flow," and bluntly informed the players that they absolutely didn't hustle on defense and showed little or no flow on offense in their Game 4 loss to Phoenix.
Then he sent them home to ponder the 3-1 deficit they've created for themselves.
In other words, they might want to start hustling or else they'll flow right out of the playoffs.
Practice will resume today, presumably, at the team training facility in El Segundo. Game 5 is Wednesday in Phoenix, when the Lakers' season could very well come to a close.
The tale of two Game 4s was all that needed to be studied to see the differences in last season's series against the Suns.
A year ago, Staples Center rocked and rolled as Smush Parker had a key steal of Steve Nash and Luke Walton then tied up Nash near halfcourt, followed by Kobe Bryant's hitting buzzer-beaters at the end of regulation and in overtime of a 99-98 victory.
On Sunday, Nash piled up a near-playoff-record 23 assists and Lakers fans filed out quietly as the Suns won, 113-100.
From 3-1 to 1-3 through four games.
"Last night was not easy to face their friends and family," said Jackson, the lone voice of the Lakers after he sent everybody home early. "I told them to bring their energy back and play a basketball game. We were out-hustled. They had more energy on the floor than we did. They imposed their will on the game and we never recovered."
An overwhelming majority of NBA teams don't recover from such series deficits.
Only eight teams in NBA history have come back to win a series after trailing, 3-1, and only two of those teams were lower-seeded teams that faced two more road games: Boston against Philadelphia in the 1968 Eastern Conference finals and Houston against Phoenix in the 1995 Western Conference semifinals.
The bright spot, if there was one in the Lakers' camp, was the relative health of Lamar Odom, whose hyperextended left elbow didn't feel any worse for the wear after he played 35 minutes in Sunday's game.
"Lamar feels a lot better today, even after the [game] activity," Jackson said. "I was very worried in the first half that he wasn't involved in the ballgame and couldn't make a shot. It didn't look like he wanted to take a shot. He got himself involved in the game in the third quarter."
Hustle and D is what they need to keep up. lol @ Kwame slacking and complaining and not going back to play with the team. Kwame lost his head band, he stayed behind to pick it up leaving his team 4 vs. 5 at the Suns end.
It's almost like they've already cashed in the season. 2 out of 4 games played looked like they didn't have any emotion, stopped trusting each other and frankly, awaited their fate for the next season. Kwame KNOWS he has Amare's number - post him up every time and go to work kid! The PG carousel is alarming. Farmar is a good player, potentially great. Shammond knows how to play - he just has poor shot selection and Smush has turned into a marshmallow.
Hustle and D is what they need to keep up. lol @ Kwame slacking and complaining and not going back to play with the team. Kwame lost his head band, he stayed behind to pick it up leaving his team 4 vs. 5 at the Suns end.
this reminds me of the game this year when phil called off shootaround in washigton and took them on a bus tour instead...
i really like phil, id like to see him evolve as a coach and maybe this year has been as much a learning experience for him as anyone on the team, but sometimes you wonder where he digs up the motivation tactics...lol
Practice Report: Jackson Cuts Practice Short
