Since the final horn blew on their game one loss to Houston on Monday night, Fish and the Lakers have been questioned on everything from their preparation to their toughness.
They’ve tried answering those questions with words, but tonight they get a chance to do it with their actions.
“The best stories are written by those individuals and teams that are able to respond in those situations,” D-Fish told the Ventura County Star. “And so we have to write our own story. It’s not up to anybody else but us.”
The Lakers will look to write the next chapter tonight when they Houston at 7:30 PST on TNT for game two of the Western Conference Semifinals.
“We don’t have to answer questions about toughness. We have to win games,” D-Fish told the LA Times. “You can ask that question all you want, but it doesn’t seem to come out until we lose. The 65 times we won, it wasn’t as big a deal, but the 17 times we lost, it was a big deal. Now losing Game 1 on your home court, all those questions start to come back up, but the way you silence that is win games, win a series. That’s what we have to do.”
Fish said he realizes that there are improvements and adjustments that need to be made and the Lakers have worked on them since the loss:
“I don’t think either team played perfect basketball, but we’ll have to do much better.”
“Just continuing to do better what we tried to do all season in terms of the defensive situations,” Fisher said. “Pick and rolls, when we have guys on the side of the floor and we’re pushing them sideline, baseline, there were some opportunities last night to close the lane off once we got guys down into the baseline area, and we didn’t do it. So it’s always a team defense thing, and we didn’t do a great job defensively as a group slowing some of those penetration opportunities down, more so in the second half than the first half.”
But Fish speaks from experience when he says that a 1-0 deficit in a best of seven series is far from the end of the world, as quoted by the LA Times and NBC LA respectively:
“I’m not saying this is going to happen, but I’ve been on teams that were down 0-2 and still won the series,” Derek Fisher said. “Its just one game. Just play, man, figure it out and play.”
“You’re asking the wrong guy, to get all caught up in us losing a game, and what that means,” Fisher said. “I’m not surprised, I’m not throwing out the baby with the bath water. I’m just disappointed more than anything.”
The Lakers and Rockets tip at 7:30 PST on TNT.
RELATED STORIES
Let more talk of Andrew Bynum distract (LA Times Lakers Blog, May 6, 2009)
http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2009/05/andrew-bynum-los-angeles-lakers-phil-jackson-kobe-bryant-houston-rockets.html
Lakers have a problem with Houston (The OC Register, May 6, 2009)
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-one-game-2394382-team-points
Lakers are talking tough, at least (The LA Times, May 6, 2009)
http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakers-rockets6-2009may06,0,3107888.story?track=rss
Lakers shrug off game 1 upset (Ventura County Star, May 6, 2009)
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/may/06/lakers-shrug-off-game-1-upset/
Lakers loss a cause for concern (NBC Los Angeles, May 6, 2009)
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/sports/Lakers-Loss-a-Cause-for-Concern.html