Lakers Blow Big Lead. Down 3-1.

Now, I’ve played and watched a lot of basketball in my day, but never have I seen a team play so well in one half, then proceed to crap all over the court in the second.

The Lakers played brilliant basketball in the first half of Game 4, but gave up a 24 point lead to lose by 6. The 97-91 loss was the final pardon Los Angeles gets, as each game is a must-win from here on out. If the Lakers’ play in the rest of the series in any way resembles their play (or lack thereof) in Game 4, then I don’t think they’ll stand much of a chance.

But it’s not over.

If being embarrassed at home doesn’t light a fire under their asses, then I don’t know what will. They need to re-center their focus, play complete games, and play championship basketball.

Game 5 is not until Sunday night, but I’ve already been given an advance copy of Phil Jackson’s pre-game speech, unedited for the lucky readers of Werewolf Bar Mitzvah:

Phil Jackson: Guys, we have to win this game. That’s the bottom line. We’ve been a mediocre Western Conference team for three years, and this year we fought and clawed our way to the top. It wasn’t a smooth road either. We had trade rumors marinating from the end of last season well into the start of this season, and we’ve had enough injuries to set up our own M*A*S*H* tent. But regardless of the adversity, we persevered. Our journey through the playoff--

Kobe Bryant: Has anyone seen my lucky goat’s head?

Phil Jackson: --our journey through the playoffs has had its ups and downs. But we’ve been able to ride the waves and weather the storm. But gentlemen, we’re not in the playoffs anymore. This is do or die. We need to play perfect basketball starting now. We’re playing for a championship, and just keeping our head above water won’t be good enough. We can’t just drift like a piece of wood; we need to be the speedboat—

Kobe: Oh word? I got 6 of those. Holla.

Phil Jackson: We can’t have our destiny delivered to us. We need to go out there and claim it. It doesn’t hurt me to say this, so I’m just gonna throw it out there: I’ve coached much better teams than this one. Surprise surprise. I’ve also coached much better teams than the Boston Celtics. My point is that we have our strong points and we have our weak points, and so do the Celtics. We have to expose and exploit their weak points using our strong points—

Pau Gasol: Mira, coach. How will we know what our strong points are? You gonna tell us?

Phil Jackson: Our strong point is named Kobe Bryant. He wears #24. Kobe, you had a grip of assists Thursday night, even when your teammates sucked in the second half. Why the fuck do you pass the ball? I don’t want you passing the ball that much tonight.

Kobe: Okay. Sasha and Luke forgot to feed my pandas this weekend and Ling Ling got a tummy ache. I wasn’t planning on passing to them anyway.

Phil Jackson: Great. Now that we have the game plan memorized, let me tell you a little story…Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out.

Kobe: A bucket of cream? Who the hell leaves buckets of cream lying around?

Phil Jackson: You’re missing the point. I’m saying that we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess of a situation and only WE can get ourselves out. It’s gonna take a lot of effort, but we cannot accept the alternative. Team let’s get out there and win this series! One game, one team! What are we gonna do!!??!!

Kobe: Eat Spaghettios!