It's a sunny June day in Los Angeles, and it's already in full swing, with Santa Barbara Beach bustling with tourists from all over the world. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThere are wealthy people from South America, middle-class families from Oregon, family travelers from East Asia, and couples from other parts of California. In short, summer is the most beautiful season here, after all, everyone loves Los Angeles and the City of Angels.

It's just that the Los Angeles Lakers who participated in the finals are not having a good time, on June 9, the Lakers team returned to sunny Los Angeles from cloudy Boston, but with a big score of 0:2, they can't shine anyway. After losing to the Celtics by a big score in the first game, Shaquille O'Neal broke out in the second game, scoring 44 points in a single game, but they still couldn't match the Celtics' super overall play. In the North Shore Garden, the Lakers had no chance, and they were suppressed from all to the end, and in the end, they also lost the second game of the finals 79-87.

Trailing 2-0 in the Finals, and only the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977 have ever made a big comeback in NBA history, Jackson also said in an interview with No. 9 that the Lakers still have a chance, "Now that we're back in Los Angeles, to be honest, I wish we could go to Boston, after all, we haven't been able to get a win there." In fact, the Lakers haven't won at North Shore Garden for three years in a row since Fox Leon came to the Celtics.

The good news for the Lakers is twofold, one is that they are back at home, and the other is that in Game 2, the Celtics' main small forward, Paul Pearce, sprained his right ankle and is likely to miss Game 3. The bad news is that the Lakers are starting to have conflicts over the starting lineup.

In the second game, Phil Jackson still insisted on using the starting formation of the four kings, but Gary Payton's performance was still terrible, except for some shining points at the beginning of the first game, he was completely blown up by the opposing Arenas at other times, the offense had no outside projection, the defense could not keep up with the pace of Arenas, and even trash talk could not affect the opponent - Arenas did not like him at all.

Even in the second game, Payton only went through the opening and second half starts, and once the rotation began, he might not be able to play for a long time, but even then, Payton still took up a fair amount of playing time, and some members of the Lakers' three-game winning streak began to complain that such a player who didn't contribute should not be given so much playing time.

Freezing three feet is not a day's cold, and Payton did not show the value and strength he deserves throughout the regular season, compared to Malone has been respected by everyone, and his strength on the court and attitude off the court are worthy of a former superstar, MVP-level player. Such a contradiction erupted at this point in time, which really made Phil Jackson feel crazy.

He spent an entire season balancing the relationships between his players, but in the end he couldn't contain the conflict. It was not only this that caused him more headaches, but also the relationship between Kobe and O'Neal, there was almost no communication between the two after the second game, whether it was in front of the media, back to the hotel, back to Los Angeles, which made Jackson extremely worried.

But Jackson himself is also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river and it is difficult to protect himself, because this year will be Jackson's last contract year with the Lakers, and Jackson can be sure that no matter whether the Lakers can win the championship this year, he will leave the Lakers nine times out of ten. This can't help but remind him of the end of the legend in 1998, which was also full of contradictions, the same twilight, and finally relied on Michael Jordan's magical performance to draw a perfect end to everything.

So Michael Jordan is the god of basketball, Kobe Bryant wants to be such a god, and Phil Jackson wants him to be such a god, but as things stand, Kobe Bryant is far from it.

The next day, June 10th, match day, for the fans of Los Angeles, they still have hope that even if they are 3-0 down, they will still support their team to fight until the last minute of the final game. At the Staples Centre, tickets for the game were sold out long ago, with fans lining up early at the door for their chance to enter the stadium. Compared with the fans in Boston, the fans in Los Angeles are less fanatical and more enjoyable. The result of the game is important, but they enjoy the process of the game more.

So Bostonians are unscrupulous, and Angelenos love show-time.

At six o'clock, more than an hour before the start of the game, the Lakers players had already warmed up, cheering each other on in the locker room, Jackson arranged his tactics a little, he no longer had the heart to do pre-game preparations, everything depends on the performance of these old guys.

But when it was time to play, O'Neal invited Jackson to the bathroom, a place suitable for chatting about some intimate issues, along with Fox and Derrick Fisher, three three-in-a-row veterans.

"I think it's better to start Derrick and Rick because they're more familiar with my style of play and more comfortable with the triangle attack so that they can get the most out of it." O'Neill stood in the tiny toilet like a mountain of meat, huge and suffocating, as if filling the entire space. And his words also made Jackson feel oppressed.

"What do you mean, Shaq, to teach me how to coach?" Jackson glared at O'Neal and asked, he couldn't tolerate his coach's authority being challenged.

'So we still have a chance to win, we just want to win and then give some opinions.' Rick Fox chimed in, he's always been quick talker. He started the first game but was soon replaced by the younger Devin George.

"I don't need you to teach me how to win, don't forget that I taught you how to win!" Jackson was furious, and the terrible situation for days had led him to say things he wouldn't normally say.

"But we're in jeopardy right now." Fisher said softly, and it didn't look like he was reluctantly pulled into O'Neill's forced group.

There was no point in forcing the palace like this, O'Neal couldn't have kept blocking Jackson from coming out of the toilet, and in the end Jackson still stuck with his starting lineup, F4 plus Devin George, for Jackson, compromising with the players would be a coach's biggest failure, because it would make the players feel that they could play as they wished without listening to the coach.

However, Jackson soon heard bad news, and with half an hour to go before the game, the Celtics announced that Paul Pierce would be in the starting lineup for Game 3.

After spraining his ankle in the fourth quarter of the second game, relevant reports have been pointing out that Pierce is likely to miss the third or even the fourth game, which is undoubtedly a great benefit to the Lakers and boosts the morale of the Lakers to a certain extent.

But as the game approached and Pierce was able to play again, Jackson began to suspect that it was a smokescreen for the Celtics.

Before the game, Fox Leon was interviewed by reporters on the sidelines, and was asked why Pierce was in the starting line of Game 3 and whether he had any ankle problems.

"I don't know, but Pierce said he had to play, so I had no choice but to let him play." Leon's answer was extremely unprincipled, and it seemed that he did not take Jackson's feelings into account in the slightest. I wonder how Jackson would feel when he heard his explanation. (To be continued.) )