CLEVELAND -- Not only do you have to get up pretty early in the morning to keep up with Phil Jackson's psychological warfare, you have to be an insomniac. With the 24-hour news cycle, an example of Dr. Phil using his mind tricks is liable to pop up at any moment -- in print or otherwise.
I love a coach who changes with the times.
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| Phil Jackson helps his players by working the officials -- before, during and after the games. (AP) |
Oh, he wasn't done. Leaning against a wall outside the visiting locker room Sunday, Jackson kept strumming his air guitar, trying to find the right riff. In my opinion, he found it.
Asked to expound on the "murder" comment, Jackson said, "It's a home court, so there's going to be more fans that are going to be more involved in every bump and grind or whatever happens individually to him. So those things will affect the decisions of the referees."
The media pack -- myself included, I admit -- followed through and ran Jackson's errand for him all the way down the hall to the Cleveland locker room, where James looked flabbergasted that Jackson had the audacity to reduce Cleveland's impressive streak to favorable officiating.
"Oh," LeBron said. "Me, getting calls? OK."
"You obviously feel differently?" he was asked.
"Next question," he said. "You guys know Phil. He always kind of makes a comment before a big game or a rival game. He always kind of says something to try and throw people's focus off. But you guys know I don't get as many calls as I should, so we're not going to go there."
So if what unfolded Sunday at "The Q" was a preview of the NBA Finals -- a stirring performance by Lamar Odom in a 101-91 victory that stopped Cleveland's home winning streak at 23 -- don't get lost in all the delicious story angles. Kobe vs. LeBron would be a treat for the ages, even better than a Lakers-Celtics rematch.
But if the Cavs are going to have a chance, their players should take this piece of advice: Don't try to beat Jackson at his own game. Let their coach handle it. Ask their coach to handle it. If the Cavs have the best player (as they believe they do), and have surrounded him with All-Star talent despite opinions to the contrary (as they believe is the case), then go out and compete on the merits.
You don't bet against the house. You don't try to go shot-for-shot with Kobe (or with John Daly, if you're in a bar). You don't tell your wife she looks fat. And above all, you don't try to beat Jackson at his own game.
We'll never know if LeBron's 5-for-20 shooting performance Sunday -- not to mention 4-for-8 at the line -- was induced by Jackson's mind games. But it sure looked to me at crucial points in the game that the Cavs thought they were competing against the referees instead of the Lakers.
They will lose this battle every time.
How and when to lobby the officials has been a touchy subject for the Cavs ever since they kept quiet after LeBron was repeatedly mauled in the 2007 Eastern Conference finals against the Pistons. After a 79-76 loss in Game 2 -- punctuated by a no-call on Richard Hamilton's mugging of LeBron as he drove to the basket -- the Cavs' brass huddled under the stands at the Palace and debated whether they should go off about the officiating. They decided to take the high road and leave it alone.
Then, in the Finals against the Spurs, Brown was criticized for letting every opportunity to work the refs -- before, during, and after games -- pass him by. On Sunday, Jackson's gimmickry was served up to Brown before the game, and he barely reacted.
"Hey, Phil's a great coach," Brown said. "I'm sure he's got an opinion and everybody will listen to it, so it's good to hear."
That's not going to cut it if and when the Cavs see the Lakers again in the Finals. Having swept the season series from Boston and Cleveland, the Lakers hold the tiebreaker for home court over both of them. But as Jackson said before the game, "I've always said that teams that win championships have to be able to win on the road." One way to do that is to work the officials, and nobody does it better than Phil.
Jackson, by the way, really must think we all just fell off the turnip truck and have forgotten the thousands of calls Michael Jordan got when Jackson was winning all those championships. Burdened with the knowledge of Jackson's pregame tweak, LeBron spent as much time arguing with referees Steve Javie, Marc Davis and Zach Zarba as he did driving to the basket. Anderson Varejao was guilty, too. Instead of waving his arms in protest, maybe he should've been boxing out Odom, who had 17 rebounds -- seven offensive -- to go with his 28 points.
"That's something that we're going to have to continue to work on, because the officials don't win and lose games for you," Brown said. "Everybody's human, and if you felt like you got hit, you react to the no-call. The game of basketball is physical, and starting with me, I've got to make sure that I leave the officials alone and the coaches leave the officials alone and the players leave the officials alone, too."
Well, the players should. It's part of Brown's job to work them over -- especially when the master is on the other side.
Sometimes it's hard to compute what gets under the Cavs' skin and what doesn't. While the Lakers were completing a 6-0 road trip without Andrew Bynum this week, James and team owner Dan Gilbert were busy complaining that Mo Williams wasn't named to the All-Star team. James probably whined himself out of that 50-point triple-double at Madison Square Garden, which the league stripped upon reviewing the tape of a rebound that should've gone to Ben Wallace.
Meanwhile, the Lakers are more emboldened than ever after losing Bynum, which Odom said forced them to focus on "how we were going to pick ourselves back up." Could they have done it any better? Kobe's 61 points at the Garden, beating the Celtics on Thursday night in Boston, and then stopping the Cavs' home winning streak even though Bryant was ill with the flu. The Lakers needed only 19 points on 8-for-17 shooting from No. 24 to make the Cavs 23-1 at home.
After a key putback that gave the Lakers a 92-85 lead with 4:45 left, Odom turned and barked at the Cavs' bench. He wouldn't divulge exactly what he said, but explained, "I don't mind being boxed out hard or physical play, but I don't accept cheap shots. I just expect guys to play fair. I know that's cheap and young and childish, but they're all big and strong and physical guys, and to blindside a guy and hit him late, that hurts me."
Odom was looking forward to a relaxing flight home to L.A., and perhaps a visit to Russell Simmons' Grammy party. But before the Lakers even got on the bus, they were already laying the traps for their return visit.
