May 7th: "A Break in Their Promise" "Lakers look ahead after collapse vs. Suns"

 
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Phil
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 6:54 am    Post subject: May 7th: "A Break in Their Promise" "Lakers look ahead after collapse vs. Suns"

A Break in Their Promise
May 7, 2006

PHOENIX — The sun rose over Lakerdom this morning — we hope — so it's not really the end of the world as we know it, although it might be good to keep an eye on Vic the Brick for a day or two.

Even with its horrific end, this season represented progress. Of course, that's also a measure of how far down they were when it started.

Assuming this really is a promising nucleus, this is what the way back looks like. It was never going to be fast or painless with Rudy Tomjanovich, who was supposed to make the Lakers exciting again and fled instead, or even with wise, old Phil Jackson.

Of course, it's still an assumption that this nucleus is so promising.

If Lamar Odom had gone out the way he had played the last seven weeks, I would have said that made their season worthwhile, all by itself.

That wasn't how he went out. In a wide-open game with Kobe Bryant taking only three shots in the second half, trying to see if his teammates could get it going (or, who knows, perhaps just a tad upset with them), Odom took a total of 14 shots.


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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 6:56 am    Post subject:

Lakers Are Exposed for What They Are
May 7, 2006

PHOENIX — The hallway, it turns out, wasn't big enough for both of them.

That lump in the Laker throat was too large. That vacancy in the Laker eyes was too wide.

On the threshold of stepping into a predestined and prepackaged Hallway Series on Saturday, the Laker frailties were too bloated to fit through the door.

At least for the next two weeks, the Clippers will have Staples Center and the city all to themselves.

While the Lakers have been banished to remorse, where they will hang out with regret.

"How does this happen in a Game 7?" asked Luke Walton.

How, indeed, does a team come within six seconds of winning a playoff series, only to be crushed for three hours in losing it?

How does a team's star player win a playoff game by making two memorable shots in a blink, then watch his team lose the series by taking only three shots in an entire half?

From a 3-1 series lead to a 31-point loss, there was symmetry in the digits but suffocation in the play, the Lakers collapsing in the deciding Game 7 of their first-round playoff series with the Phoenix Suns, 121-90.

"I don't know what to say," said Laker Coach Phil Jackson.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:00 am    Post subject:

Back From Brink, Phoenix Turns Los Angeles Into One-Team Town

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By HOWARD BECK
Published: May 7, 2006

PHOENIX, May 6 — Southern California's basketball hierarchy was shaken up Saturday night in the Arizona desert.
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The Suns' Leandro Barbosa, who scored 26 points, driving between Luke Walton, left, and Kobe Bryant.
2006 Playoffs

Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant, who reunited to restore the glory of the Los Angeles Lakers, are out of the playoffs. The pug-nosed Los Angeles Clippers — for the first time in their history — have outlasted their glamour-boy rivals. And to the chagrin of Los Angeles marketers and fans, there will be no Hallway Series at the Staples Center, thanks to the timely rebirth of the Phoenix Suns.

Left for dead, or at least maimed, after losing the All-Star Amare Stoudemire to off-season knee surgery, the Suns made a stand Saturday night. They closed out an edgy seven-game series with a 121-90 rout of the Lakers at the US Airways Center. The Suns now face the Clippers in a Western Conference semifinal series that opens here Monday night.

True to the character that carried them to the Western Conference finals a year ago, the Suns were a picture of balance in Game 7. Seven players scored in double figures, led by the youngsters Leandro Barbosa (26 points) and Boris Diaw (21). Steve Nash, the N.B.A.'s reigning most valuable player, added 13 points and 9 assists while playing on a slightly sprained right ankle.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:02 am    Post subject:

Bell Gets In the Last Shot
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
May 7, 2006

PHOENIX — The series ended as it began, with elbows and angry glares, followed by one last parting shot from Raja Bell.

The Lakers and Phoenix Suns aren't known for physical basketball, but their series had just about everything, right up to the final game. Kobe Bryant picked up another hard foul against Bell, elbowing him in the cheek while trying to break free of him in the second quarter. Bell, however, delivered the final blow to Bryant after the Suns' runaway 121-90 victory.


"Tell him it was a great series," Bell said. "But now we've got bigger fish to fry."
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:04 am    Post subject:

That was quite a vanishing act

PHOENIX - And then they disappeared into the night.

Growing smaller by the moment, all warts exposed, heart barely beating, the road ahead looking longer by the step.

The Lakers did not have one great game left. Not a good game, either. Not much game, actually.

Just one of the worst Game 7 performances ever.

So fade to black, to the end of the season, to a final performance that will haunt, and just maybe, motivate into what now will seem a very long off-season.

Turn the lights out on that Hallway Series and best of luck with the T-shirts.

"They might be on sale now," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:07 am    Post subject:

Phil still feeling good about season

Broderick Turner

10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, May 6, 2006

PHOENIX - Their season is over, having come to a dead stop after the Lakers were blasted, 121-90, Saturday in Game 7 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series.

Critics have pointed out holes that need to be filled, and they will expect General Manager Mitch Kupchak and his staff to make it happen.

Critics say the Lakers need a better point guard and another power forward. They are over the salary cap but will have their $5 million mid-level exception and the bi-annual $1.67 million exception available to sign free agents.

The Lakers also have a first-round draft pick and could look to make trades.

"We have to make some large decisions about this team, about who stays and what we build our team around," Coach Phil Jackson said. "We feel comfortable that we have a nucleus and that we can go from there. Hopefully we can find some additional pieces that will us a little bit better for next year."
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:14 am    Post subject:

Ya Gotta Be There

snippet:

The Suns were left for dead after blowing Game 4 against the Lakers - twice - in the most excruciating ways possible. So Steve Nash goes out and shoots 63 percent in the next two games, and Phoenix wins Game 6 at the Staples Center on Thursday without its best defender, the suspended Raja Bell, on the floor to guard Bryant, who scored 50 in the loss.

Great players make statements in the playoffs. And the Sixers just happen to have one in Allen Iverson. You never know what they're capable of doing on the big stage.

Bryant has been brilliant in this series, pulling a 180 that is as stunning as you'll ever see. Through the first five games, Bryant totally remade his game, and, by extension, his teammates' games. Not being stupid, he knows that the only way his team will be successful in the postseason is if it is in fact a team.

"I've seen Kobe having more fun these last couple of games than I've seen him have all year," Lakers forward Luke Walton said. "I know he likes going out there and scoring a lot and showing he's the most talented player in the NBA. But these last couple of games, at least from playing with him and interacting with him, it seems like he's having a blast doing it different."

It's fitting that this series will end with Bell once again guarding Bryant at the game's most important moments. For five years, since Bell came off the bench in Philly in the 2001 Finals to hound Bryant, the two have been nose to nose, with Bryant's elbows frequently popping said nose of Bell.

Tuesday, Bell had had enough, clotheslining Kobe as if he were channeling Night Train Lane.

"I don't hate him, but I don't respect him," Bell said, "because I think he's a pompous, arrogant individual."

Oh, yeah, it's on.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:15 am    Post subject:

Lakers did right by moving Shaq
By David J. Neal
dneal [AT] MiamiHerald.com

* Sunday Pro / Con: Armando Salguero | Keeping Kobe a poor decision

Thank goodness the Lakers did the right thing for their long-term future -- and the Heat's immediate future -- by retaining Kobe Bryant and sending Shaquille O'Neal back East.

Yep, I'm saying it -- the team of Mikan, Wilt, Kareem and Shaq did the right thing by jettisoning the latest in that line while keeping his more troublesome teammate. It had to be done.

I'm not basing it on this season, in which Clarence Darrow couldn't have laid out a better case for Bryant as the best player in the game (only until LeBron's defense improves) and this season's MVP. You have to look beyond one season and even one monster game.

Look at the situation that presented itself to the Lakers as the 2003-04 season ended.

The 2003-04 Lakers supergroup overcame a locker room so toxic no insect should've been able to survive, and was dismissed from the NBA Finals by Detroit. Considering the ages and personalities involved, obviously, the next few years would see more rebuilding done in Los Angeles than after the last 7.0 earthquake.

Only the foolishly optimistic could foresee any further O'Neal-Bryant coexistence. One had to go. One would have to be kept as the linchpin.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:17 am    Post subject:

Keeping Kobe a poor decision
BY ARMANDO SALGUERO
asalguero [ at ] MiamiHerald.com

* Sunday Pro / Con: David J. Neal | Lakers did right by moving Shaq

The Lakers, in all their purple tradition and gold success, showed dubious wisdom two years ago when they weighed Kobe Bryant versus Shaquille O'Neal and chose to keep the second banana instead of King Kong.

The proof is that O'Neal and the Miami Heat are already in the Eastern Conference semifinals and casting a beguiling glance at an NBA title. This, after Miami made it to the conference finals last season with a roster so flawed, club president Pat Riley blew it up and practically started from scratch.

And while O'Neal's Heat was winning, then rebuilding then preparing to win some more, the Lakers were failing to break .500 and missing the playoffs.

The Los Angeles fans who love to compare Bryant to Michael Jordan could fittingly do so because their man was as out of the playoffs as the retired Jordan was.

This season the Lakers improved, and Bryant, no doubt, played a key role in that by leading the NBA in scoring. But all those points, all those shots over three defenders and that impressive 81-point night got the Lakers all of 45 wins.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:18 am    Post subject:

Totally Eclipsed
Suns take control from the start in Game 7 and will face Clippers in next round
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
May 7, 2006

PHOENIX — The Lakers came to their final resting place in the desert, quietly and decisively, looking nothing like the team that held a convincing lead in a series that so quickly spun out of their control.

The Phoenix Suns ran and the Lakers took cover, carving out pieces of history that don't look good on paper, much less on hardwood, in a 121-90 loss Saturday at US Airways Center.

The Lakers never lost a Game 7 like this — their worst Game 7 defeat had been a 113-99 loss to New York in the 1970 NBA Finals — and the Suns became only the eighth team in league history to win a series after trailing, 3-1.

Kobe Bryant had 24 points, only one in the second half, Luke Walton had 16 points and no other Laker had more than 12.

What was a cozy series lead dissipated quickly amid the revival of the Suns, who averaged 120.3 points over the final three games.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:20 am    Post subject:

Hallway to hell
BY ROSS SILER, Staff Writer


Kobe Bryant watches as the Suns' Tim Thomas exhaults after a dunk in the fourth quarter of game seven of the Western Conference quarterfinals, Saturday at US Airways Center in Phoenix. The Suns beat the Lakers 121-90 to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals.
Photo Gallery: 5/6: Lakers vs. Suns (Michael Owen Baker/Staff photographer)
PHOENIX The last time Phil Jackson coached a game this big, in this building now known as US Airways Center, his Chicago Bulls clinched their third consecutive championship with a victory in Game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals.

"For me personally, it's a comfortable arena to have to come and play in," Jackson said before the Lakers took the court Saturday for Game 7 of their Western Conference first-round series. "But we'll see how the players react to it."

They reacted worse than Jackson could have ever imagined, even for the youngest team in the NBA playoffs. The Lakers were crushed 121-90 by the Phoenix Suns. They played like a one-man team in the first half that didn't know if it was coming or going on defense.

The Suns led by 17 points after the first quarter, and the Lakers stayed in the game, at least marginally, with Kobe Bryant scoring 23 of their 45 points in the first half. Bryant took only three shots, however, in the second half and scored just one more point.

"It's a shame we couldn't give them a game today," Jackson said, "And make the series that it was memorable in the seventh game. You could see early on that things were going to be a little bit strained for us this game.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:22 am    Post subject:

There they go, quietly
Steve Dilbeck, Columnist

PHOENIX - And then they disappeared into the night.

Growing smaller by the moment, all warts exposed, heart barely beating, the road ahead looking longer by the step.

The Lakers did not have one great game left. Not a good game, either. Not much game, actually.

Just one of the worst Game7 performances ever.

So fade to black. To the end of the season, to a final performance that will haunt, and just maybe, motivate into what will now seem a very long offseason.

Turn the lights out on that Hallway Series. Best of luck with those T-shirts.

"They might be on sale now," said Suns coach Mike D'Antoni.

The Lakers played their best basketball of the season early in their series with the Suns, but could not sustain it. Took a 3-1 lead and then saw it slip painfully away.

The Suns had another level to go to, but it turned out, the Lakers did not. For the initial four games, the Lakers played impressively and it was difficult not be taken in by their team approach.

"That might have been the best we could play," Kobe said. "We really played great, great basketball.

"Once (the Suns) got a rhythm into what we were doing and made their adjustments, they went to another level. It might have been our maximum effort."
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:23 am    Post subject:

Sunset on Lakers' run
Phoenix caps off series comeback
By Ross Siler Staff Writer


Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant (8 ) tries to slip past Phoenix Suns' Raja Bell (19) during the second quarter of Game 7 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series Saturday, May 6, 2006, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)
• Photo Gallery: 05/06: Game 7 - Lakers vs. Suns

PHOENIX - The last time Phil Jackson coached in a game this big, in this building now known as US Airways Center, his Chicago Bulls clinched their third consecutive championship with a victory in Game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals.

"For me personally, it's a comfortable arena to have to come and play in," Jackson said before the Lakers took the court Saturday for Game 7 of their Western Conference first-round series. "But we'll see how the players react to it."

They reacted worse than Jackson could have imagined, even for the youngest team in the NBA playoffs. The Lakers were crushed 121-90 by the Phoenix Suns and looked like a one-man team in the first half that didn't know if it was coming or going on defense.

The Suns led by 17 points after the first quarter and the Lakers stayed in the game, at least marginally, with Kobe Bryant scoring 23 of his team's 45 points in the first half. Bryant took only three shots, however, in the second half and scored just one more point.

"It's a shame we couldn't give them a game today," Jackson said, "and make the series that it was memorable in the seventh game. You could see early on that things were going to be a little bit strained for us this game.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:25 am    Post subject:

Team-player mentality fails Bryant in loss
By Ross Siler Staff Writer

PHOENIX - For the first half of Saturday's Game 7, Kobe Bryant carried the Lakers with 18 points in the second quarter, tossing in 3-pointers from 30 feet and keeping his team in the game as best he could.

Bryant had 23 of the Lakers' 45 points at halftime. He took only three shots, however, in the third and fourth quarters and left coach Phil Jackson asking later if he even scored in the second half.

The answer was yes, as Bryant hit a technical-foul free throw in the third quarter after a defensive three seconds call on the Suns.

But Jackson wouldn't fault Bryant for holding back in the second half, at the end of a series when Bryant played facilitator more than scorer. Bryant averaged 27.9 points in the series, nearly seven below his season average.

"We wanted to get back in the ballgame and run stuff through other guys," Jackson said.

"(Steve) Nash was a little banged up. We were trying to work at that end of it, trying to go inside to Lamar (Odom), get an inside-out game, and Kobe just sat on that game and let the other things happen."

Jackson said Bryant could have put up a 50-point game if he wanted but that only a team effort would have allowed the Lakers to make something of their night. They hoped to get close enough for Bryant to take over in the fourth quarter.

"I trust his judgment in that ballgame," Jackson said. "I felt that he was comfortable trying to help other guys

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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:44 am    Post subject:

No support for Kobe from fans or teammates

David Vest
The Arizona Republic
May. 7, 2006 12:00 AM

Kobe Bryant received next to zero love from the sellout crowd inside US Airways Center during Saturday's Game 7 and next to zero help from his teammates in the first half when the Suns seized control en route to a 31-point victory.

Facing a 15-point deficit to start the third quarter, the Lakers superstar surprisingly put his team's bid for a second-half comeback in the hands of the teammates who failed to keep pace with him and the Suns in the first 24 minutes.

Bryant didn't take a shot for the first 4:14 of the third quarter and took just two more after that.

His only point contribution in the second half, when he was needed most, was a meaningless free throw.

"If we were going to get back into this type of game we had to have everybody contributing," Bryant said. "In the first half I started picking it up offensively just to keep us in the hunt."

Asked if he was tempted to abandon the all-for-one-and- one-for-all approach in the second half, Bryant said no.

After the game, Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he trusted Bryant's judgment.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:45 am    Post subject:

Bell happy Bryant talk is over

Doug Haller
The Arizona Republic
May. 7, 2006 12:00 AM

By game's end, Raja Bell was tired of discussing Kobe Bryant and elbows and suspensions. "Whatever happened, we've got bigger fish to fry now," the Suns guard said with a smile.

Those were once Bryant's words, directed at Bell during the regular season when the Lakers star dismissed the Suns' best perimeter defender. Some might say Bell gets the last laugh.

It was some series for the two, decided in Saturday's Game 7, a series-clinching 121-90 win for the Suns at US Airways Center. Flying elbows, a clothesline, traded insults.

Afterward, Bell hoped folks wouldn't remember just his harsh foul, one that earned him a Game 6 suspension, about this first-round series. It was too special, crammed with game-winning shots and a little history. Only seven teams had rallied from a 3-1 deficit in a seven-game series.

To be honest, Bell was surprised how much attention his actions brought. That doesn't mean he regrets it. No, he acted the way in which he was raised. He stood up for himself. That's why he could sleep at night. He had been true to his character, true to his heart.

But he hadn't expected so much attention.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:50 am    Post subject:

Quick start spurs rout

Paul Coro
The Arizona Republic
May. 7, 2006 12:00 AM

Before the playoffs began, Suns coach Mike D'Antoni told a gathering at an all-employees meeting that he had started reading Zen for Dummies in preparation for the playoffs.

Saturday night his team closed the book on the Lakers' season and rewrote a chapter or two along the way, and now they face the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference semifinals beginning Monday night at US Airways Center.

They stopped the Lakers by channeling their own anger over the Lakers' rough play, over the officials' calls and their own haggard, staggered offense to become only the eighth team in NBA history to erase a 3-1 playoff series hole.

The Suns destroyed the Lakers 121-90 in Game 7 for the second biggest playoff blowout in franchise history. The Los Angeles Tortilla Factory - a term coined after the 1993 Lakers' playoff fold when they also lost three straight to the Suns - was open for business again as the Suns shot 61 percent, the best a team has ever shot in a Game 7.

Phoenix called it "Mission Possible" from the moment they stepped into a monstrous series hole but were unwavering in their climb out of it, returning to the breakneck, freewheeling style of basketball that had defined a 54-win season. The Suns averaged 117 points in four wins and 94 in three games that are now as forgettable for fans as Raja Bell's Game 5 misstep.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:52 am    Post subject:

Like deer in Suns' lights

Worst Game 7 loss completes Laker playoff meltdown

01:47 AM PDT on Sunday, May 7, 2006

By BRODERICK TURNER
The Press-Enterprise

PHOENIX - The magnitude and intensity of a Game 7 playoff game overwhelmed the Lakers.

One could see it from the blank stares in their eyes. One could see it from their slouching body language. Most importantly, one could see it from how they played such a poor game with so much at stake.
AP
Kobe Bryant's Lakers are bounced from the playoffs, failing to eliminate Phoenix for the third straight game. Bryant had 24 points but was held to one in the second half.

The Lakers were beaten into submission by the Phoenix Suns, 121-90, Saturday at US Airways Center in the seventh and deciding game of the Western Conference first-round series.

The 31-point defeat was the worst Game 7 defeat in franchise history and completed a collapse by the Lakers after taking a commanding 3-1 series lead.

The hope that Kobe Bryant would carry the day never materialized. He had 23 points in the first half to keep the Lakers in the game, torching his nemesis, Raja Bell, who returned from his one-game suspension for a clothesline he put on Bryant in Game 5.

But Bryant scored just one point the rest of the way. And his young and inexperienced teammates never got it going.

Forward Lamar Odom missed layups and had just 12 points and five rebounds. Center Kwame Brown fumbled balls away and missed easy inside shots, scoring just eight points. Point guard Smush Parker continued to struggle, missing 9 of 13 shots from the field.

"They were a little nervous about (the game)," said Bryant, who made 8 of 16 shots. His teammates made 24 of 75 (32 percent).
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:55 am    Post subject:

Not Worthy of Game 7

02:04 AM PDT on Sunday, May 7, 2006

GREGG PATTON

PHOENIX - And on Saturday the rest of the roof fell in.

A week that began with the euphoria of a miraculous Lakers win, and went straight downhill from there, ended in a heap of purple and gold rubble at the US Airways Center.

The Lakers were beaten by Phoenix for the third time in five days and rudely ousted from their first-round playoff series.

Ousted?

They were crushed, annihilated and dismissed.

They were so far out of Game 7 Saturday that Kobe Bryant didn't bother trying to shoot the Lakers back in after the second quarter. Yes, it was Kobe-takes-three-shots-in-the-second-half bad.

The final score was 121-90 and never close after the opening minutes. The fans in the sold-out home of the Suns started celebrating wildly in the first quarter.

Smart crowd.

After taking a 3-1 lead in games and teasing the Southland into believing a Clippers-Lakers series was imminent, the Lakers reneged. Instead it will be Phoenix, cutting in.

The Clippers and Suns open their series Monday in Phoenix. The Lakers go home and open a can of "What happened?"

"I'm not mad that we didn't play well offensively," forward Lamar Odom said, although the Lakers did play poorly on both ends of the floor. "I'm mad that we let (Phoenix) run up and down and get layups.

"Once they got out to a big lead, we tried to step on the gas and play (up-tempo) with them. We can't do that."
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 8:15 am    Post subject:

Glaring weaknesses exposed by the Suns

By JEFF MILLER
The Orange County Register

PHOENIX – A series that had so much ended with a night that had so little. No drama. No controversy. Mostly, no Lakers resistance.

After six games couldn't determine which team was better, the Suns spent four quarters Saturday tattooing the reality everywhere.

Win or go home? Lose this way, go home embarrassed.

"Terrible," center Kwame Brown all but spit. "Lose Game 7 by 30? That's unheard of."

Thirty would have been an improvement. The actual deficit was 31, 121-90. And it wasn't that close.

When it ended, there also was almost no Lakers class. This was a matchup during which the opposing players often were too close - bruising, tugging, bashing one another.

But on the Game 7 final buzzer, the Lakers fled from the Suns, most of them walking off the court without offering as much as a handshake.

"It's a shame we couldn't give them a better game," Coach Phil Jackson said. "I don't know what to say."
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 8:17 am    Post subject:

Eclipsed in every way
The Lakers wilt in a Phoenix runaway, completing their collapse from a 3-1 series lead.

By KEVIN DING
The Orange County Register


The Lakers' Kobe Bryant walks with his head down after committing a foul during the Lakers' 121-90 loss to the Phoenix Suns in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals at U.S. Airways Arena in Phoenix, Ariz.

KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Multimedia
BLOG: Kevin Ding's observations from Game 7
WEB EXTRA

Thumbs up

No time for fear
Credit Suns guard Leandro Barbosa (26 points Saturday) for turning the series around by overcoming his jitters early in the series and showcasing his great speed and shooting in the last three games.

Thumbs down

Brown down
The Lakers again fed Kwame Brown the ball near the rim, just as they knew has worked against the thin Suns. But he was November-level Brown and missed every touch shot he tried, frustrating his teammates and inspiring Phoenix.

Bench surprise

No Mihm
Lakers center Chris Mihm wound up not playing at all in this series after playing the regular-season finale aggravated his sprained right ankle. Mihm took part in some of practice Friday - in what turns out to be an obviously futile endeavor.

KEVIN DING, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

PHOENIX – Last May, Lakers owner Jerry Buss didn't know how another summer of roster flux would turn out or even that he would rehire Phil Jackson as coach.

All Buss knew was that he had Kobe Bryant in the prime of his basketball life, and that's why Buss said he expected the 2005-06 Lakers to win a playoff round, maybe two.

Gleefully comfortable six days earlier after an overtime Game 4 coup, mere seconds from being completely right in a heart-stopping Game 6, Buss wound up watching the season end in embarrassment Saturday night.

The Lakers capped a remarkable collapse of three consecutive season-ending losses with one of the worst Game 7 performances in NBA history, surrendering early to the Phoenix Suns in a 121-90 defeat.
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 4:38 pm    Post subject:

Lakers look ahead after collapse vs. Suns

By JOHN NADEL
AP SPORTS WRITER
photo
Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson instructs his team against the Phoenix Suns during the first quarter of Game 7 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series Saturday, May 6, 2006, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)

LOS ANGELES -- The joy and anticipation stoked by the possibility of an unprecedented Battle of L.A. disappeared with the greatest playoff collapse in Lakers history.

To make matters even worse, it was capped by an embarrassing flop in Game 7.

So now, with the Clippers about to play Phoenix in the Western Conference semifinals, the Lakers head home for the summer to ponder what went so completely wrong against the Suns.

The Lakers were just a rebound and six seconds away from advancing to the second round of the playoffs in Game 6.

How in the world could they have been so horrific in Game 7?

"I don't know what to say," coach Phil Jackson said after his team was routed 121-90 on Saturday night.
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