ELEVEN RINGS Part 30

For me, this was the most gratifying victory of my career. It had been a trying season marred by inconsistency and troublesome injuries, but in the end the players were a study in courage and teamwork. I was moved to see Pau overcome the "softie" stigma that had haunted him for two years and Fish fight back after being torched by Ray Allen. It was also endearing to watch Ron mature and play a key role in containing Pierce, then make all the right shots just when we needed them. "I didn't think that winning that trophy was going to feel as good as it feels," he said later. "But now I feel like somebody."

Beyond the thrill of capturing another ring, there was something deeply satisfying about putting the Celtics' curse behind us with a triumphant victory in our own house. Indeed, the fans played a big part in this win. Lakers fans are often mocked for their laid-back approach to the game, but on this day they were more engaged than I'd ever seen them.

It was as if they, too, understood instinctively the symbolic importance of this moment-not just to the team but to the L.A. community as a whole. In the city of dreams, this was the only real reality show in town.

CHAPTER 22

THIS GAME'S IN THE REFRIGERATOR

We are all failures-at least the best of us.

J. M. BARRIE

Maybe I should have ended it there, with the crowd roaring and confetti raining down. But life is never quite so well scripted.

I had reservations about coming back for the 201011 season. For one thing, I was having trouble with my right knee and I was eager to get on with replacement surgery. Second, although most of the core team would be returning, we were likely to lose some key players to free agency, notably guards Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic, both of whom would be hard to replace. Third, I had a secret longing to escape the grueling NBA travel schedule and the pressure of constantly being in the public eye.

During the Western Conference finals, I had lunch with Dr. Buss in Phoenix to discuss the upcoming season. He said that contract negotiations with the players' union weren't going well and he expected the owners to inst.i.tute a lockout when the 201011 season was over. That meant that the Lakers needed to take some measures right away to trim expenses. He also confided that other owners were giving him grief about my salary, claiming that the terms of my contract forced them to pay their own coaches more. Bottom line: If I decided to come back, it would be at a reduced salary.

I told him I would give him an answer in July. Of course, I knew when I said it that it would be hard for me to say no to Kobe and Fish if we won the finals. And sure enough, not long after our victory over the Celtics, they both started pleading with me via text to stick around and "win a 3P again."

So I negotiated a one-year deal with Dr. Buss and began working with Mitch Kupchak on a.s.sembling a new roster. I dubbed the campaign the "Last Stand," which, alas, turned out to be a pretty accurate way to describe this snake-bitten season.

We were faced with replacing nearly 40 percent of the last season's roster. In addition to Jordan and Sasha-who would be traded to the Nets in mid-December-we were losing backup center Didier Ilunga-Mbenga as well as forwards Adam Morrison and Josh Powell. We replaced the outgoing players with a mixed group of veterans and young players, the most promising of whom were forward Matt Barnes and guard Steve Blake. But Barnes injured his knee and missed about a third of the season, and Blake caught the chicken pox at the end of the season, which diminshed his playing time in the playoffs. What's more, Theo Ratliff, the thirty-seven-year-old center we brought in to back up Andrew Bynum was injured and didn't get much playing time. Still, I wasn't worried about our front line. The team's lack of youth and energy was a bigger concern. Jordan, Sasha, and Josh were always challenging the veterans to rise to their level of energy. Losing them meant that our practices weren't going to be as intense as before-not a good thing.

Another problem, of course, was Kobe's right knee. He'd had another round of arthroscopic surgery in the off-season and later said that his knee had lost so much cartilage that the doctors told him it was "almost bone on bone." Kobe continued to have trouble recuperating after games and hard practices. So we reduced the amount of time he spent practicing the day before games, with the hope that the additional rest would allow his knee to recover faster. That diminished the intensity of the practices, as well, but, more important, it isolated Kobe from the team, which created a leaders.h.i.+p vacuum late in the season.

Despite all these issues, the team got off to a healthy 13-2 start and looked pretty strong until the new LeBron James-led Miami Heat picked us apart, 9680, in the Staples Center on Christmas Day. Then we went on a road trip just before the All-Star game that ended with three disturbing losses to Orlando, Charlotte, and Cleveland.

During the game against the Cavaliers-the team with the worst record in the NBA at that point-Kobe got into foul trouble battling guard Anthony Parker, and Ron Artest tried to save the day but made a series of mistakes instead that put us down by 5 going into the half. Kobe and Fish were not pleased. They said that n.o.body could figure out what Ron was trying to do on the court, particularly on defense, which made it hard to stage a cohesive attack.

I called a team meeting during the All-Star break and we talked about ways to get the team back on track. Chuck Person, a new a.s.sistant coach, suggested that we try a system of defense that he claimed would help us guard against our old bugaboo-screen-rolls-and, in the process, tighten up the way we worked together as a team. The system was counterintuitive and required players to unlearn many of the defensive moves they'd been using since high school. Some of the other a.s.sistant coaches thought it was risky to introduce such a radically different approach in the middle of the season, but I thought it was worth the gamble.

The main downside was that Kobe wouldn't have enough time to practice the new system with the team because of his b.u.m knee. I thought that would be a minor obstacle. Kobe was a quick study and good at adapting to challenging situations. But as we began to roll out the system in games, he often got frustrated with his teammates and started giving them directions that contradicted what they'd been learning in practice. This disconnect would haunt us later.

Nevertheless, the new system worked well at first and we went on a 17-1 streak after the break. But in early April we lost five games in a row, including one to arguably the best screen-roll team in the league: the Denver Nuggets. And to hang on to second place in the conference, we had to win the last game of the season-against Sacramento in overtime. We'd gone into late-season slides before and still triumphed, but this time felt different. We shouldn't have been struggling so hard at this point in the season.

It didn't help that our opponent in the first round of the playoffs was the New Orleans Hornets, whose star point guard, Chris Paul, had little difficulty penetrating our new defensive system and creating havoc all over the floor. The Hornets also had former Laker Trevor Ariza, who was determined to show us that we'd made a mistake letting him go. He did a good job of it, giving Kobe trouble on defense and knocking down several key three-pointers. Before we knew it, the Hornets had stolen the first game in L.A., 109100, and we had to fight hard to scratch out a lead in the series, 21.

The Hornets weren't our only obstacle. After practice on the Sat.u.r.day before game 4, Mitch met individually with the members of my staff and informed them that their contracts, which ran out on July 1, weren't going to be renewed for the next season. This included all the a.s.sistant coaches, trainers, ma.s.sage therapists, weight and conditioning instructors, and the equipment manager-everyone except athletic trainer Gary Vitti, who had a two-year contract. Mitch's intention was to give the staffers time to find new jobs, in light of the expected NBA lockout. But the timing of the announcement-in the middle of a tight first-round series-had a disruptive impact on the players as well as the staff.

As if that weren't enough, later that night rookie Derrick Caracter was arrested for allegedly grabbing and shoving a female cas.h.i.+er at an International House of Pancakes and was charged with battery, public drunkenness, and resisting arrest. He was released on bail on Sunday and no charges were filed, but he didn't get to play in game 4, which the Hornets won to tie the series, 22.

Earlier in the series, we were studying the game videos as a group and observed that Chris Paul was sliding through the defense and forcing one of our big men to switch off and cover him, which was exactly what he wanted.

I turned the projector off and said, "Well, what do you think, guys? Our defense looks totally confused. We don't know what we're trying to do. And that's playing right into his hands."

Fish spoke up first. "I think there's something wrong here. I know we've been through a lot, and some of our guys have been out. Maybe it's our att.i.tude or our lack of focus. But something's not right."

After hearing that, I took a seat facing the players and told them of a personal problem I'd been struggling with for the past two months-something that they'd obviously been picking up on a nonverbal, energetic level. In March I'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer. For weeks afterward I grappled with how best to proceed. Ultimately, I decided to wait until after the playoffs to have surgery; my doctor had a.s.sured me that we could control the growth of the cancer, at least temporarily, with drugs.

"This has been a tough period for me," I explained. "And I don't know if it has affected my ability to give 100 percent of what I normally give you guys. But I know there've been times when I've been more withdrawn than usual."

I began to tear up while I was talking, and the players seemed genuinely moved. Still, looking back, I'm not sure this was the right decision. Although telling the truth is never a mistake, there can be serious repercussions. And timing matters. I wondered if my confession would help unify the team or just make the players feel sorry for me. They'd never seen me before in such a vulnerable state. I was supposed to be the "Zen guy," the man they could always count on to be cool under pressure. Now what were they supposed to think?

In retrospect, I should have antic.i.p.ated what would come next. But I'd never had one of my teams fall apart in such a strange and spooky way before. After all, the team was finally returning to champions.h.i.+p form as we polished off the Hornets in the next two games. In fact, I was so impressed by the team's performance in game 6, I told reporters that I thought this squad had "the potential to be as good as any team I've coached with the Lakers."

Needless to say, I spoke too soon.

It wasn't that our next opponent, Dallas, was such a huge threat. The Mavericks were a talented veteran team that had finished the year with the same record as ours (57-25). But we'd always dominated the Mavs in the past and had beaten them handily in March to win our regular season three-game series, 21, and home-court advantage against them in the playoffs.

However, Dallas created some serious matchup problems for us. First, we didn't have anyone who could keep pace with the Mavs' quick diminutive point guard, Jose Juan Barea, who, like Chris Paul, was surprisingly good at breaking down our new defense. We'd hoped that Steve Blake, who is quicker and more nimble than Fish, could be our defensive stopper in the backcourt, but he wasn't back up to speed after his bout with chicken pox. Second, the Mavs were able to wear Kobe down with DeShawn Stevenson, a tough, muscular guard, and virtually neutralize Andrew Bynum with the bigman tag team of Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood. What's more, with Barnes and Blake not 100 percent, our bench had a tough time keeping up with Dallas's second unit, especially sixth man Jason Terry, who was devastating from the three-point line.

One of the biggest disappointments was the performance of Pau, who'd played well against the Mavs in the past. But the refs allowed Dallas forward Dirk Nowitski to push Pau and prevent him from establis.h.i.+ng a solid post-up position, which hurt us badly on offense. I urged Pau repeatedly to fight back, but he was grappling with a serious family issue and was distracted. True to form, the media made up stories to explain Pau's less-than-stellar performance, including gossip that he'd broken up with his girlfriend and had had a falling out with Kobe, neither of which was true. Still, the rumors disturbed Pau and compromised his focus.

Game 1 was a mystery to me. We established dominance early and built up what looked like a solid 16-point lead in the third quarter. Then, for no obvious reason, we stopped playing on both ends of the floor and the energy s.h.i.+fted to the Mavs. By the end of the fourth quarter, we still had a chance to win, but we uncharacteristically flubbed several opportunities to put the game away. With five seconds left and the Mavs up by 1, Kobe stumbled trying to get around Jason Kidd and bobbled a pa.s.s from Pau. Next, after Kidd was fouled and hit one of his free throws, Kobe missed an open three at the buzzer to give the Mavs the win, 9694.

The plot took a more ominous turn in game 2. We came out with fire in our eyes, but that feeling quickly dissipated. Not because the Mavs' performance was so spectacular-it wasn't-but because they trumped us on aggressiveness and were able to capitalize on our slow-acting defensive game. The big surprise was Barea, who was virtually unstoppable, weaving his way effortlessly through defenders to pick up 12 points (which equaled the output of our entire bench) and 4 a.s.sists. Nowitski also had an easy time outmaneuvering Pau and scored 24 points to lead the Mavs to a 9381 victory. In the closing seconds of the game, Artest was so frustrated he clothes-lined Barea, who was trying to put pressure in the backcourt, and was suspended for the next game. Not one of Ron's proudest moments.

Losing Artest hurt but it wasn't catastrophic. We replaced him in game 3 with Lamar and made a concerted effort to move the ball inside to take advantage of our bigger front line. That worked for most of the game and helped us to build a 7-point lead with five minutes remaining. But then Dallas, which was loaded with good three-point shooters, started exploiting our weakness in guarding the perimeter, particularly when we were using a big lineup. Led by Nowitski, who scored 32 points and 4 of 5 threes, the Mavs waltzed to victory, 9892.

After that loss, my son Charley called to tell me that he and his siblings, Chelsea, Brooke, and Ben, were planning to fly to Dallas to see the next game. "Are you guys crazy?" I asked.

"No, we're not missing your final game," he replied.

"What do you mean my final game? We're going to win on Sunday."

Ever since I was a coach in the Continental Basketball a.s.sociation, my kids had been in the stands for my big games. In those days we could drive to many of the games from our house in Woodstock, and June would turn the trips into family adventures. After I joined the Bulls, the kids, then in middle school and high school, would travel to away games during the finals, courtesy of the team. The ritual continued when I moved to L.A., by which time they were old enough to enjoy the parties connected to the series. By 2011, they'd been to so many finals-thirteen, to be exact-that they liked to say the NBA threw a big party for them every June.

My favorite moment was when they showed up in Orlando for the 2009 finals and presented me with a Lakers yellow basketball cap embroidered with the Roman numeral X to commemorate my tenth champions.h.i.+p. Would there be an XII cap?

The vultures were already circling. When I saw my friend, NBA photographer Andy Bernstein, arrive in Dallas, I greeted him half-jokingly as "dead man walking." Still, even though it may seem like magical thinking now, I really believed that we were going to win game 4 and take the series back to L.A. To be honest, I hadn't given much thought to how I wanted my career to end or what I was going to do next. I was just trying to stay in the moment and get through the next game.

That was the message I delivered to the players: Win the game, get the series back to our house, then put the pressure on the Mavs to win. Maybe I was missing something, but I didn't have the sense that the players had given up or thought the series was already over. Nor did I think that they'd tired of playing together as a team.

Of course, when you're a coach, you don't have the same kind of apprehension you do as a player. When you're a player, you obsess about not s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up and making a mistake that will blow the game. But when you're the coach, you think, how can I get these guys keyed up and on their game? What kind of insight can I offer them so that they can play more spontaneously? And what kind of coaching change can I make to give them an edge?

My concern in game 4 was trying to get Pau to push back against Nowitski and stake out a better position in the post. Our key to victory was a strong inside game, and that began with Pau. In game 3 I got so tired of watching him get shoved around that I thumped him on the chest as he walked off the floor just to get a rise out of him. The media had fun with that, but Pau understood what I was trying to do. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.