ELEVEN RINGS Part 28

"I figured you just left your guys out there to die in game 7," he said, "so that they could learn something from that awful feeling."

"Yes," I said. "Because you can't really understand what that's like unless you go through it yourself."

From that point on, none of the players needed convincing. When they returned to L.A. in October for the 200809 training camp, there was a fire in their eyes that I hadn't seen before. "There's no experience that wrenches your gut like making the NBA finals and losing," says Fish. "We went into the off-season questioning everything because we had come so close, but we were still so far away. I think that loss forced us all to ask ourselves, 'Do we really want this?'"

The answer was decidedly yes. From day one this was a team possessed. "There wasn't anything that was going to hold us back," Fish adds. "No matter what we faced, no matter how many ups and downs, we knew we were tough enough-mentally and physically-to figure this out. And we did."

During training camp, we talked about what we'd learned in the playoffs that could help us in the future. The players said that they'd discovered just how good we could be but realized that we hadn't played with the kind of physical intensity we needed to win it all. When we were overrun by Boston, Pau got labeled as "soft," which we knew wasn't true. Still, if we wanted to win a champions.h.i.+p, we had to change that perception.

I was impressed by the players' cool determination. The previous year they had taken a quantum leap forward in terms of mastering the system. Now, inspired by their mutual loss, they were deepening their commitment to one another so that they could become more integrated-and invincible-as a team.

This is what I often refer to as dancing with the spirit. By "spirit" I don't mean anything religious. I mean that deep feeling of camaraderie that arises when a group of players makes a commitment to stand up for one another to achieve something greater than themselves, no matter what the risks. This kind of commitment often involves covering for teammates' weaknesses or fouling when necessary or protecting another player from being hara.s.sed by the enemy. When a team is bonding like this, you can feel it in the way the players move their bodies and relate to one another on and off the court. They play the game with a joyful abandon, and even when they're squabbling, they do so with dignity and respect.

The 200809 Lakers were that kind of team, and their spirit grew stronger as the season progressed. This was not the most talented team I'd ever coached, nor the most physically dominant. But the players had a deep spiritual connection that allowed them, every now and then, to produce miracles on the court. What I especially liked about this version of the Lakers was that many of the players had grown up together and learned to play the game the right way. By this time, they also knew one another well enough to integrate their movements in ways that baffled their opponents.

One player who reflected the spirit of the team was Luke Walton. The son of Hall of Famer Bill Walton, Luke had been immersed in basketball wisdom since early childhood. After attending the University of Arizona, he was drafted by the Lakers in 2003 but had difficulty finding a role for himself because he didn't fit the standard profile of a small forward. He didn't have a killer jumper, nor was he gifted at creating his own shots. But he loved moving the ball and playing the game the right way. He was also gifted at s.h.i.+fting the flow of the action from one side of the court to the other, a critical move in the triangle offense. Many coaches don't place a high value on such skills, but I encouraged Luke to grow in that direction. Eventually, he blossomed into one of the best facilitators on the team.

Like many of the younger players, Luke was emotional and would often shut down and avoid talking to anyone for a few days if he hadn't played well or the team had lost because of a mistake he'd made. I tried to convey to him that the best way to get off the emotional roller coaster is to take the middle way and not get too high when you win or too low when your game fails you. Over time Luke matured and calmed down.

Some players require a gentle touch, while others, such as Luke, need something more provocative to wake them up. Sometimes I would get under his skin on purpose to see how he would react. At other times I'd throw him into difficult situations in practice to find out if he could handle the pressure.

"It was frustrating," recalls Luke, "because I didn't always know what Phil was doing or why he was doing it. And he's not going to explain it. He wanted you to figure it out on your own." After a couple of years Luke realized that he'd absorbed what we had been teaching him, and he started to play the game naturally in a more integrated way.

Another player who evolved into a more integrated player during this period was Kobe. Ever since Fish had returned, he'd been developing a more inclusive style of leaders.h.i.+p that came to fruition during the 200809 season.

In the past Kobe had led mostly by example. He'd worked harder than anyone else, rarely missed a game, and expected his teammates to play at his level. But he hadn't been the sort of leader who could communicate effectively and get everyone on the same page. If he talked to his teammates, it was usually, "Give me the d.a.m.n ball. I don't care if I'm being double-teamed."

That approach usually backfired. As Luke describes it, "I've got Kobe on the floor yelling at me to give him the ball. And I've got Phil on the bench telling me to make the right pa.s.s no matter what. So instead of just seeing what's happening on the court, I'm trying to take in Kobe yelling and Coach telling me not to pa.s.s to him. And it made my job a lot harder."

But then Kobe started to s.h.i.+ft. He embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers.

Luke noticed the change. Suddenly, Kobe was reaching out to him in a much more positive way than before. If Luke was b.u.mmed about missing three straight shots, Kobe would say, "C'mon, man, don't worry about that s.h.i.+t. I miss three straight shots every f.u.c.king game. Just keep shooting. The next one's going to go in." Says Luke, "When your leader is telling you that, instead of giving you a death stare, it makes the next shot a lot easier to take."

The season started out on a 17-2 roll and didn't taper off until early February, when I decided to slow things down after beating Boston and Cleveland. I wanted to do everything possible to keep the players from burning out before the playoffs. Still, our biggest losing streak was a mere two games, against the Spurs and the Magic. We finished the season with the best record in the Western Conference, 65-17, which gave us home-court advantage over everyone except the Cleveland Cavaliers, if we had to play them.

To inspire the players, I started wearing my 2002 champions.h.i.+p ring to playoff games. That ring had seen a lot of action. I'd worn it through two failed champions.h.i.+p finals runs and three other playoff campaigns that went south. As I told Los Angeles Times reporter Mike Bresnahan, "I've got to get rid of that ring."

My biggest reservation was the team's lack of a sense of urgency. Everything had come so easily during the regular season, and we'd glided past the Utah Jazz in the first round, 41. I was concerned about how our team would handle an opponent that matched up well against us and played a more physical brand of basketball. That happened in the second round, against the Houston Rockets.

The Rockets didn't look all that imposing on paper. They were missing two of their best players-Tracy McGrady and Dikembe Mutombo-and we were confident we could contain their other major threat, center Yao Ming, with double coverage by Bynum and Gasol. But when Yao broke his foot in game 3 and was sidelined for the rest of the series, Rockets coach Rick Adelman responded by putting in a small lineup led by six-six Chuck Hayes at center, forwards Ron Artest and Luis Scola, and guards Aaron Brooks and Shane Battier. The strategy worked. In game 4 our lackadaisical defense broke down and Houston tied the series, 22. Lamar called it "our worst game of the year."

Even though the team's spirit seemed to be flagging, we roared back in game 5 at the Staples Center, beating the Rockets 11878, the Lakers' biggest playoff victory since 1986. But then we lost our mojo again and fell apart in game 6. Kobe later dubbed the team bipolar, and he wasn't far off. It was as if the Lakers had two conflicting personalities, and we never knew which one-Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde-was going to show up on any given night.

That changed-finally-in game 7 in L.A. We decided to start playing aggressive defense at the very beginning, and that raised our game to another level. All of a sudden, Pau was fighting back and making key blocks; Kobe was playing Jordanesque defense, cutting off pa.s.sing lanes and grabbing steals; Fish and Farmar were teaming up to contain Brooks; and Andrew was an unshakable force in the lane, scoring 14 points with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks. In the end we held the Rockets to 37 percent shooting and outrebounded them 5533 as we sailed to victory, 8970.

Kobe took the long view after the game. "Last year at this time everybody was pegging us as unbeatable and we got mopped up in the finals," he said. "I'd much rather be a team that's there at the end of the finals, not now."

We had a few more lessons to learn before we reached that point, but I was grateful that we had woken up from our split-personality trance. Or had we?

Our opponent in the Western Conference finals-the Denver Nuggets-posed a different kind of threat. They were loaded with great shooters, including Carmelo Anthony, whom Kobe nicknamed "the Bear," and two players who had hurt us in the past: point guard Chauncey Billups and power forward Kenyon Martin.

The Nuggets came after us hard in game 1, and we survived by the skin of our teeth with a heroic, last-minute push by Kobe, who scored 18 of his 40 points in the fourth quarter. Then we let a 14-point lead dribble away in game 2 and lost, 106103. I was disappointed by Bynum's lack of hustle and weak defense in that game, so I put Odom in the starting lineup in game 3 to give us a little more athleticism up front. That helped, but what impressed me more was the team's resilience in the final minutes of the game. During a break late in the fourth quarter, Fish gathered the team together and delivered one of his most inspirational speeches. "This is a moment in time when you can define yourself," he said. "This is a moment when you can step into that destiny."

His words had an impact. With 1:09 left, Kobe, who finished with 41 points, hit a three-pointer over J.R. Smith to put us ahead, 9695. Then, in the final thirty-six seconds, Trevor Ariza s.n.a.t.c.hed Kenyon Martin's inbound pa.s.s to seal the win.

The series was far from over, however. The Nuggets steamrolled over us in game 4 and were pus.h.i.+ng hard in the next game. The turning point came in the fourth quarter of game 5, when we inst.i.tuted a scheme to use the Nuggets' aggressiveness against them. Rather than having Kobe and Pau avoid double-teams, we had them lure defenders toward them, which created openings for Odom and Bynum inside. Then, as soon as the Nuggets tried to plug that hole, Kobe and Pau went on the attack. We won the game, 10394, and polished off the series in Denver two days later.

We had hoped to meet the Celtics again in the champions.h.i.+p finals, but Orlando beat them in a hard-fought seven-game series in the Eastern Conference semifinals, then knocked off the Cleveland Cavaliers to face off against us. The Magic had a twenty-three-year-old center and Defensive Player of the Year, Dwight Howard, and a strong group of three-point shooters, led by Rashard Lewis. I was surprised by Orlando's success in beating the Celtics (without Garnett) and the Cavaliers (with LeBron James), but I still didn't think the team was ready for prime time.

Kobe didn't either. He made it look too easy in game 1 at the Staples Center, knocking down 40 points, the most he'd ever scored in a finals game, while our defense held Howard to 12 points en route to a 10075 win. The basketball G.o.ds were with us in game 2 when Courtney Lee missed on a potentially game-winning alley-oop play in the closing seconds and gave us a second chance to nail down the win in overtime.

When we moved to Orlando for game 3, the Magic came alive, shooting an NBA-finals-record 62.5 percent on the way to a 108104 victory. That set the stage for Fish's finest moment ever in the playoffs.

Fish, who had a knack for making big game-winning shots, did not shoot well in game 4. In fact, as we took the floor, down 3 points with 4.6 seconds left in regulation, he had missed his previous 5 three-point attempts. But that didn't prevent him from squaring up for another when his defender, Jameer Nelson, foolishly backed away to help guard Kobe instead of committing a two-point foul against Fish to take the game. That mistake allowed Fish to put up the three and sent the game into overtime. Then, with the score tied and 31.3 seconds remaining, Fish threw another dramatic three to put the Lakers ahead to stay, 9491.

Pure character. Pure Fish.

If this were a movie, it would have ended there. But we still had one more big hurdle to get over.

Before game 5 even started, the media was in the locker room asking the players to imagine what it was going to feel like to win a ring. And when I strolled into the trainers' room, I noticed Kobe and Lamar quizzing each other about champions.h.i.+p-finals trivia. So I closed the doors and tried to set a different mood.

Instead of giving my usual pregame talk, I pulled up a chair and said, "Let's get our minds right." We sat in silence for five minutes and got our breath in sync.

Then a.s.sistant coach Brian Shaw started to give his chalk talk on the Magic. But when he turned the board around, it was completely empty. "I didn't write anything down," he said, "because you guys already know what you need to do to beat this team. Go out there and play with the idea of playing for and with each other and we'll end these playoffs tonight."

It was a great way to set the tone for a final game.

Kobe led the attack from the start, scoring 30 points as we took the lead in the second quarter and never looked back. When the buzzer sounded, Kobe leaped into the air and celebrated with his teammates in center court. Then he came over to the sidelines and hugged me.

I don't remember exactly what we said to each other, but the look in his eyes touched me the most. This was our moment of triumph, a moment of total reconciliation that had been seven long years in coming. The look of pride and joy in Kobe's eyes made all the pain we'd endured in our journey together worth it.

For Kobe, this was a moment of redemption. He would no longer have to listen to all the sports pundits and fans telling him that he would never win another champions.h.i.+p without Shaq. Chinese water torture is how he described their lack of faith in him.

For me it was a moment of vindication. That night I surpa.s.sed Red Auerbach's champions.h.i.+p record, which was gratifying in its way. But more important to me was how we did it: together, as a fully integrated team.

The most gratifying thing of all was watching Kobe transform from a selfish, demanding player into a leader that his teammates wanted to follow. To get there, Kobe had to learn to give in order to get back in return. Leaders.h.i.+p is not about forcing your will on others. It's about mastering the art of letting go.

CHAPTER 21

DELIVERANCE