burnet44
05-01-2007, 12:32 PM
Jackson sends Lakers home early
The coach cuts short Monday's practice after telling the players their effort in Game 4 loss to the Suns left a lot to be desired.
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
May 1, 2007
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.
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.
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 coach cuts short Monday's practice after telling the players their effort in Game 4 loss to the Suns left a lot to be desired.
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
May 1, 2007
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.
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.
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.