A Lakers Difference Maker

//A Lakers Difference Maker

A Lakers Difference Maker

By | 2016-10-22T05:57:48-08:00 March 29th, 2011|News|Comments Off on A Lakers Difference Maker

The value of Derek Fisher to the Los Angeles Lakers isn’t something that can be quantified on a numerical basis.

Fish generally goes through an NBA season putting up modestly consistent numbers, which LA needs to be a winning team. But with Derek, value is better assessed in his contributions to the team at every level.

The Lakers extended their winning streak to seven this past weekend with victories over the Los Angeles Clippers and New Orleans, their 14th and 15th wins since the All-Star break in 16 games. That’s a 94 percent win percentage that puts the Lakers as the hottest team in basketball, head and shoulders above all comers, with the postseason just nine games away.

"As you move through a season, particularly for a team that has the experience we have, there are ebbs and flows in a season you embrace," Derek said after the win over New Orleans. "You understand there are certain things that are just part

[of] an NBA season.

"When you’re on that high and things are going good, it’s important to maximize it and ride it out. I think that’s what we’ve done. We haven’t all of a sudden said it’s important to us now. As we started to play good right after the break, we found some things that we could kind of hang our hat on, and stuck with it. It’s been good for us."

But even with the Lakers leaving overwhelming success in their stead, Derek’s mentality never wavers. At this time of the year, the Lakers’ captain is focused on readying his team for another long playoff push. And he’s doing it well.

With Fish, it begins with a singular mindset, writes Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Times:

"After placing his shoes by his locker, Lakers guard Derek Fisher walked past the television and shot a glance at the screen. The Memphis Grizzlies were seconds away from securing an upset victory Sunday over the San Antonio Spurs, the team with the NBA’s best record that seemed destined to have home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.

But Fisher didn’t flinch for one second. He simply walked past the monitor and headed toward the exit. There was a game to play."

The Lakers won that game handily over the New Orleans Hornets, very possibly their first round playoff opponent, 102-84.

"We feel good about the way we’re playing, but there’s not a sense of accomplishment for winning a lot of regular season games at this point," Fish would tell Medina after that victory. "We obviously love winning more than losing.

"But I don’t think we’re patting ourselves on the back necessarily for having a good stretch right now. However we finish this season, it’s for naught if we don’t go into the postseason we need to go into it and win a title."

TANGLED UP
There’s not much that can deter D-Fish’s focus on the floor.

He’s rarely involved in verbal spats and generally puts his head down when a player tries to start one.

That was the case on Friday when Fish bumped hard into Clippers center Chris Kaman as Kaman set a screen. After the play, Kaman began to jaw at D-Fish who, instead of getting into it, plainly walked away. Kaman was assessed two technical fouls and ejected from the game.

Kaman took issue with the way that Derek took the screen, which Fish believes was an illegal screen to begin with. But Fish’s bottom line after the game was simple: ‘If you’re going to set a screen on me, I’m not going to make it easy on you.’

"Teams run 40-50 pick and rolls a game," he said. "To get one or two times where the referee calls it the other way, it’s not that high a percentage to me. If there are two times when the referee thinks you set an illegal screen, the other 48 times when you knock my head, there wasn’t any problem. But now that it goes the other way, now there’s a problem?

"That’s a part of what we do," he added. "If big guys are coming to set screens on little guys, to not expect any contact or there to be times where we get tangled up or get in each other’s faces, it’s not realistic. I mean, this is competition. As much as you’re trying to tear my head off, I’m trying to tear your head off, too. It’s not about fault. It’s about competition. Regardless of what happens you’ve still got to play the game."

LOOKING DEEPER
Derek carries that fiery demeanor onto the court, where the Lakers need it the most, every day, writes LA Times columnist T.J. Simers:

"There’s just something about the guy. Whether you’re wearing the opponents’ uniform and getting whistled for an offensive foul, or he’s angering Lakers fans for being the team’s "weak link." [But] he knows how to push buttons, a key performer in bringing five championship parades to Los Angeles."

Simers says true appreciators of the game of basketball can see what No. 2 really does for LA:

"Watch him during a game, just him, and there is an art to what he does. He understands the game, makes the opposition uncomfortable and works the officials…. He spends a lot of time on the floor, then picks himself up. He bumps and gets bumped. How many extra possessions have the Lakers earned on the way to winning championship after championship because Fisher has taken a bone-jarring charge?"

His coach chalks that up to grit.

"He’s a bulldog," says Coach Phil Jackson.

Simers couldn’t agree more with the Zen Master.

"Take a whole game into account and the argument can be made Fisher is the toughest player in the NBA. He stands in the way of a charging 300-pound center, gets flattened and bounces right up. Always does. He’s played in almost 500 consecutive games, the NBA’s longest current streak. And that’s a little guy taking a beating in a big man’s game every night. Most of the time, it’s a job well done given his team’s overwhelming success."

Derek also combines an obscene amount of toughness with a sublime amount of knowledge, probably the best part about Fish, his coach claims.

"Here’s what I like about him," says Jackson. "When things get to a point in a ballgame when we need execution by design or reads, he’s able to do that. A lot of our other players are looking to drop the ball in Kobe’s lap and then walk away sucking their thumbs.

"Fish is able to continue to run the offense. Everybody says he makes really big shots at the end of games, and yes he does, but that’s because he knows how to execute the plays."

Derek hears those who doubt his skills, but he feels more responsibility to prove his worth to himself than to others:

"I want to prove, more than to other people but to myself, that I belong here and can deliver when the team needs me to," he said. I know there are a growing number of people that still question whether or not I’m physically capable of playing, but this is pro sports. If I was as bad as some people think, then I’d be gone.

"We all want to be appreciated. I don’t know how much better we can play as a team."

Jackson says that Derek is unquestionably the quarterback of the Lakers’ triangle offense, but that doesn’t mean he has to score all the touchdowns:

"He knows how to execute the skills that are necessary in the offense we run…. All these guys are dynamic point guards who can speed up the game and also score, this offense doesn’t require that. It requires the point guard to be a quarterback of sorts, but he doesn’t have to score the touchdowns."

In the NFL, quarterbacks are ultimately judged by the amount of Super Bowl rings they can count on their fingers when they’re done.

Given the five rings on his hands, the countless big shots he’s knocked down with a cool, calm demeanor and the blood and sweat he’s put into the Lakers championship runs, No. 2 also has a pretty good idea what it takes to succeed.

After all, when the 82-game season is said and done, that’s what really matters, 16 wins to a championship:

"The postseason is different," Derek said. "Regardless of whether we win every game the rest of the way, it still requires a different type of game to win in the playoffs. You recognize that’s there’s a re-set button you have to push. You can go 40-0 to finish the season and that has no bearing on the playoffs."

And it is that journey, and only that journey, which makes the payoff so well worth it.

"Every season, you’ve never quite known for sure that you’re going to end up where you want to be, until you were there," Fish said. "And that’s where that emotion, when the final buzzer goes off and you’re the champions, comes from.

"Because you’ve been literally hanging over the edge of the cliff for months on end."

NEXT UP
The Lakers’ next matchup does have some bearing on the postseason.

The second and third best teams in the West tangle on Thursday night when the Lakers take on the Dallas Mavericks at the Staples Center. A win for the Lakers would mean an enormous three game edge (two up, plus the tiebreak) in the race for the two-seed.

But if Dallas wins, the Mavericks would take the season series (tied 1-1) and draw even with LA in the standings with eight games to play.

It all goes down in the second half of TNT’s Thursday doubleheader. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 PST.

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