Daily News: Hardened Lakers show their true grit

Mamba · Jun 13, 2009

ORLANDO - They have been brilliant before. Exciting, fast-breaking and smooth. They have been angry before. Snarling, tough-minded and crude.

But they had never dug this deep.

For the better part of the past two playoffs, the Lakers have been the most talented team on the court.

During this year's run, the Lakers have easily been the most poised team on the court.

But Thursday night, in Game 4 of the NBA Finals — when they arm-wrestled the Orlando Magic — the Lakers were finally the toughest team on the court.

"Tonight," Lamar Odom said in the locker room after the Lakers 99-91 overtime victory, "was about finding a way to win the game."

It was about staying close enoughin the first half even though Odom, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum each picked up two fouls in the first nine minutes of the game.

It was about getting it done with DJ Mbenga, Luke Walton, Jordan Farmar, Josh Powell and Kobe Bryant on the floor for a large stretch of the first quarter.

It was about Bryant wrestling a key rebound away from the bulging biceps of Orlando's Dwight Howard in the fourth quarter.

Or 180-pound Jordan Farmar fouling Howard hard enough to keep Superman from flying to the basket for a rim-rattling dunk.

"Not bad for a little guy," Farmar, the former Taft High of Woodland Hills and UCLA standout, joked afterward. "I just wasn't going to let him get off a shot."

In these moments, two things became abundantly clear: The Lakers weren't going to let Orlando's physical play get to them, and the Lakers had added a thick outer callous since the Boston Celtics beat them up in last year's Finals.

All season they have talked about being tougher. But toughness, like character, isn't learned, but rather forged.

Through experience, from failure, with regret and desire fueling the hot fire it requires to be fed.

It wasn't until Thursday night though, that the Lakers were pushed hard enough to show how much they had hardened.

"It was a game we had to work so hard for and fight through so much and in the end it really paid off," Gasol said.

"It was a crazy game. We had to work so, so hard. We put everything out there and fought so hard. We had a great reward winning the game and being in this position now."

For Gasol, the game was as personally redemptive as it was for his team.

No other Laker bore as much criticism after last season's meltdown against the Celtics as the 7-foot Spaniard.

"When you lose, they blame it on something," Odom said. "If we would've won, they'd be saying he's the best finesse player ever. But we lost. So you blame it on something."

Privately though, the criticism bothered Gasol deeply. He's a proud man, from a proud country that celebrates its bullfighters alongside its soccer stars.

In the offseason, he did as much to prepare himself as he could.

Building muscle, getting into the best condition of his career, using the criticism as motivation.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who'd spent his first few months as Gasol's coach last season admiring the Spaniard's talent and figuring out how best to utilize it within the team's system, felt comfortable enough with him to try and push him and chide him to be even better.

Publicly, Jackson rarely took shots at Gasol; but in practice, he rarely missed an opportunity to get in a subtle dig. And Gasol, who speaks English better than most of the sportswriters who cover the team, always heard him.

Thursday night, Gasol had the last laugh. He wrestled the much bigger and stronger Howard to a draw, and managed to corral the Magic's sharp-shooting power forward Rashard Lewis.

He shrugged off a poke to the eye from Mickael Pietrus, and got back up after being knocked to the ground by Howard, fighting for rebounds.

He complained to the referees but kept playing through whatever decisions they made. But mostly he just battled.

"You know, he was taking a lot of blows out there, went down a number of times and got hit in the face," Jackson said, by way of compliment after the game.

"Labels, whatever they were about him being soft, we know that he's very resilient and persistent and stays with it. He's got a certain intensity and fire that's all his own. Different, but it's all his own."

Thursday night, that intensity and fire was contagious.

It raged throughout the sweaty Central Florida night.

Brightly, powerfully and brutally, creating a heat the Lakers had never before summoned, in a golden color they are now close enough to see.
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http://www.dailynews.com/lakers/ci_12583080

Mamba · Jun 13, 2009

They have really toughened up.

Compared to last year, this is a completely different team.

huevonkiller · Jun 13, 2009

Or 180-pound Jordan Farmar fouling Howard hard enough to keep Superman from flying to the basket for a rim-rattling dunk.

"Not bad for a little guy," Farmar, the former Taft High of Woodland Hills and UCLA standout, joked afterward. "I just wasn't going to let him get off a shot."

In these moments, two things became abundantly clear: The Lakers weren't going to let Orlando's physical play get to them, and the Lakers had added a thick outer callous since the Boston Celtics beat them up in last year's Finals.
Click to expand...

Unbelievable. :O

ivey · Jun 13, 2009

I was suprised Howard got his first dunk in game 2, in the end of the secound quarter. Lakers haven't exactly been easy on him ;D

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Daily News: Hardened Lakers show their true grit

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