Monday, April 5, 2004 | 9:37 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
The traveling soap opera that is the Los Angeles Lakers has had a bandwagon quality to it in recent weeks, with any number of NBA fans and observers clambering aboard.
The Lakers have been winning, Karl Malone is back after missing 10 weeks with an injured knee and Kobe Bryant has been playing at a MVP level in spite of his ongoing sexual-assault defense in Colorado.
The Lakers won 11 consecutive games and were bet down to a 6-5 favorite in Las Vegas to win the league championship in June.
And then the San Antonio Spurs arrived at the Staples Center on Sunday.
And they issued a not so subtle reminder: We not only are the defending champions, we might still be the team to beat when the playoffs open later this month.
Snapping the Lakers' winning streak and stretching their own to six, the Spurs defeated Los Angeles 95-89 in a nationally televised game that was informally billed as a late-season clash of titans who may bump heads again in the Western Conference final. For sure, the meeting had a special quality to it.
Play was physical, chippy and intense. Both teams played hard, recognizing that this wasn't just one of 82 on the schedule.
Each side was looking for respect.
And while the Lakers had been the darlings of the national media in recent weeks, it was the Spurs who gained the most as they beat a hot team on its home floor.
San Antonio, 5-2 in Las Vegas sports books to win the NBA title, had lost three previous meetings against the Lakers this season, but the most recent of those games was Dec. 3. That made Sunday's game all the more pertinent for those sizing up either team's championship potential.
The Spurs and Lakers have won the past five NBA championships, San Antonio taking the bracket years of 1999 and 2003 and Los Angeles winning each of the three years in between. Factor in Sacramento and Minnesota and the Western Conference will almost certainly provide this year's champion as well.
Among Eastern Conference teams, only Indiana and Detroit have winning records in games against Western opponents. Neither the Pacers nor Pistons will be favored in a final against any of the Western powerhouses.
Had the Lakers downed the Spurs, that LA bandwagon would have reached its capacity. Everyone, it seems, was ready to ordain the Lakers as the team to beat, and for good reason: Malone, who has the second most points in the history of the league, is healthy; Bryant has been wonderful despite the distraction of periodically leaving the team to attend to his personal matter in Colorado; coach Phil Jackson has tried to limit the conjecture about his future; Devean George and Derek Fisher started coming around and better disguising the team's thin bench; and Shaquille O'Neal has been his usual, battering-ram self.
But O'Neal got into quick foul trouble against the Spurs, picking up three "reaching" fouls in the first half, and the Lakers' offense not only failed to compensate but failed to match the Spurs' tough, inside-out game. San Antonio has a great periphery attack and a clever post man of its own in reigning MVP Tim Duncan, who finished the afternoon with a full plate of 18 points, 13 rebounds and 6 assists.
The fact that David Robinson is retired and has not been a part of the Spurs' title defense has become secondary to this new reality: San Antonio is even better this season than last, as its international cast -- Rasho Nesterovic, Manu Ginobili and Hedo Turkoglu play key roles -- has more than covered for the loss of the Admiral. (Another "foreigner," French-born Tony Parker, led all scorers with 29 points at LA.)
The Western Conference playoffs will have extraordinary potential, with Memphis and Dallas also playing well and not an easy series in sight.
The preview that was up for display Sunday served its purpose. It whetted the appetite for more of the same: vintage basketball by the very elite.
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