LOS ANGELES — Think these Lakers are pretty good, do you?
Think they’re a serious threat to capture the NBA title?
Maybe. Definitely a maybe. Which is a long ways from any feeling of certainty.
This is all unknown territory. A young team still unproven, still trying to find out exactly who and what it is.
The Lakers entered the playoffs with the best record in the Western Conference. Surprised everyone, even superstar Kobe Bryant, so taken back by the team’s success he started issuing high grades to management.
In the highly competitive West, they emerged as the conference’s best regular-season team. Became something of a West co-favorite.
But this is nothing like the Lakers teams from earlier this decade, when they entered the postseason with roaring thunder, sending fear into almost cowering opponents behind Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe & Co.
This team, however entertaining, is of a very different ilk. This is a team of moving parts, a team that needs to play defense, move the basketball, utilize multiple talents.
And to now find out just how hungry they really are, how badly they really want this.
This is about an evolution. About a talented team growing up in the playoffs, undergoing a self-discovery that could prove telling in the immediate seasons to come.
“This team knows I was unhappy with our performance,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said of the Game 1 win. “Although we won by a considerable amount of points, we did not consider it a good game for us.”
If the Lakers are to evolve into a championship-caliber team, they will have to tighten the defense. Will have to play with greater intensity, something that can be awkward and difficult to manage against a run-happy team like the Nuggets.
But early in Wednesday’s Game 2, it was a very different Lakers team. Paul Gasol had made just 1-of-5 field goals at the half and Lamar Odom just 2-of-7. Yet the Lakers were still up by 10 because the game’s best player, Bryant, became its hottest, which is almost unfair.
Good teams have to learn to win in different ways, but trying to outscore an explosive team like Denver is not the formula the Lakers want to develop in the postseason.
A steely eye, an obvious determination, a will to win, a quiet confidence. Champions have that, and that’s what the Lakers have to develop in the postseason.
Right now the Lakers are a very good team. The postseason will show if they evolve into a great one.
