Vintage Fish Buoys LA

An axiom holds true no matter what the circumstances.

In the NBA, no axiom rings truer than this: Derek Fisher knows how to win.

It was on display on Sunday night against the Portland Trailblazers.

Derek maintains his dribble as he drives past Portland’s Wesley Matthews.

With two-and-a-half minutes left to play, the surging Lakers were locked in a chess-match with Portland that they felt like they had to have. D-Fish buckled down and the result was a Hollywood comeback.

Derek and Kobe Bryant combined to score the final five LA baskets to lead the team to an 84-80 win, clinching a Pacific Division title with their 12th victory in 13 games.

At the All-Star break, Los Angeles sat in the third spot in the Western Conference, a team in search of their identity. But a newfound focus on defense has revitalized the Lakers to a 12-1 mark since the break. Nowhere is that focus more exemplary than in the play of point guard and captain D-Fish.

"To do what we’re trying to do and what we have done, there has to be a purpose and a reason that’s bigger than you," Derek said. "It comes with the respect you have with the other people you have on your team in the locker room that keeps pushing you. You play through injuries and play through bad games and play through whatever situations you face because you don’t want to be the weak link in the chain. You really want to come through for the group. It takes time to build that."

Coming through on Sunday began by seizing opportunity. The Lakers had already cut a six-point Portland lead down to two when Blazers point guard Andre Miller muffed a dribble at the top of the key, allowing the ball to trickle away. Immediately D-Fish, who was offering help defense on Miller, pounced on the loose ball. He drove the court off the steal and fed Kobe Bryant for a jam that tied the game at 76.

On Portland’s very next possession, the Lakers forced Blazers forward Nicholas Batum into the far corner. Desperate to pass the ball off, Batum floated a lazy pass and Derek snared it out of the air, running full speed up court.

Despite being surrounded by two Blazers, Fish lofted a scoop shot that rolled around the rim and through the net. Bryant added a floater to push the lead to two possessions and after a technical on Ron Artest gave Rudy Fernandez a free throw, Bryant buried another dagger on a fade away to put the Lakers up five with 32.9 to go.

Batum countered with a three, making up for his earlier miscue and putting the LA lead in peril at just two points. But there was Fish with the response, dropping a mid-range jumper with 10 ticks left that sealed the game. Given Derek’s flair for the dramatic, it wasn’t exactly a shock to the Lakers locker room when he closed the game, as coach Phil Jackson told the LA Times:

"He brings the Lakers back time and time again in situations like that," said Lakers Coach Phil Jackson underscoring the near-beginning of Fisher’s favorite time of the year.

After the game, which he finished with eight points and three assists, Derek then dropped the understatement of the evening.

"When it comes down the stretch, I’m not uncomfortable making the play," Fisher said. "It’s not always going to be to make a shot, but defensively being in the right spot at the right time. You get a steal and that allows you to go down and make a shot. I don’t over think about it being the end and saying, ‘Give it to me.’ But I do relish the opportunity to help us win, whether it’s the first quarter or fourth quarter."

Fish said the ability to come up big late comes from having been there and done that, another axiom that No. 2 holds dear.

"Experience does create a lot of situations where it allows you to think clearly under pressure in big-time situations," he said. "It’s like riding a bike."

Experience is something Fish and Kobe have in spades and Kobe never tires of seeing Derek make those big plays:

"He makes big shots all the time," Kobe Bryant said. "He didn’t have a good game

[statistically] because he was in foul trouble, (but) his stroke was there, and he’s shooting the ball well. He makes big plays."

Fish’s longtime coach summed it all up succinctly:

"He just gets better as the game wears on," Jackson added.

But Derek said that the entire team’s play late in the game was about making a statement on their home floor:

"I think we started to scrap in the fourth quarter a lot more," he said. "In the first three quarters they were beating us to the loose balls, they were going to the offensive glass and tipping it back out and getting multiple shot opportunities. Those things are going to happen when you miss your big guy in the middle. We talked about it at the end of the third quarter, as a group, that regardless of whether we win or lose the game, we have to send a message that people aren’t going to come into our building and push us around, and elbow us in the face and elbow us in the mouth. I think in the fourth quarter we stood it up and played the type of defense we needed to play."

HOW TO MAKE IT IN THE NBA
The play of Fish and Kobe in the game’s late stages was a classic example of why the two are winners through and through.

But it still left the Orange County Register’s Kevin Ding, a scribe who has seen the two do it time and time again, impressed. Ding wrote afterward that Derek and Kobe just know how to get it done:

"Yes, Bryant and Fisher did it again, and there are few things more respectable in the world of sports than being clutch.

Andrew Bynum, suspended by the NBA and not allowed to be at Staples Center with the team, celebrated via Twitter from afar by writing that Fisher and Bryant "are the best two closers in the game!"

And when you look back on it, their eagerness in that timeout offers as much insight into what makes them so good as their steals or their shots in this Lakers victory. If there is a secret to success in the clutch, it lies right there.

They could not wait to do something.

"You could fail," Fisher said later, "but you fail more by not trying."

And there you go. That’s the mind freak that Bryant and Fisher could reveal to you a time or two and then act out for you in live plays that become classic replays – and it might still get lost in translation because it boils down to whether you have a personality under extreme pressure to come through pretty often or very rarely.

To read all of Ding’s piece, click here.

SEASON SWEEP

Sunday evening wasn’t the only winning the Lakers did over the weekend.

On Friday, Fish helped lead the Lakers in hustle stats while the team completed a season sweep of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

"They play us tough almost every time we face this team," Derek said. "Obviously, with Kurt Rambis being the coach, I think they have some understanding of what we’re trying to do offensively and defensively. They do a good job of executing their offense and making it hard for us to slow them down."

No. 2 scored five points in the 106-98 victory, but his biggest contributions came on the glass and on the pass.

Derek grabbed five rebounds, his most since an early December win against the Wizards, and dished out four assists on the night. Two of Derek’s dimes came when the Lakers went on an 11-2 run with 3:30 to play that sealed the game.

The run began with Fish finding Pau Gasol for a short bucket, continued when he hit Lamar Odom for a jumper, and was capped when No. 2 sank a free throw, kicking off a weekend full of winning.

KOBE’S GRIT
No player in the NBA has a true appreciation for the work-ethic of Lakers star Kobe Bryant the way D-Fish does.

Having grown up in the NBA together after both were drafted by LA in 1996, the two often say they appreciate each other more because they’ve "been through it."

So as Bryant grits through injuries to his finger, ankle and neck, Derek understands what his dedication really means.

"I don’t think people quite understand the discomfort and the pain he feels at times with so many different things going on," Fish said. "Let’s not forget he came off of knee surgery. His fingers look like the PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] as far as how curvy they are and he had one of the worst ankle sprains I’ve seen in my career and hasn’t missed a game. I just think he’s a warrior."

NEXT UP
Los Angeles next takes the court on Tuesday night when the Phoenix Suns come to town.

No. 2 is averaging seven points a game in three showings against the Suns. The Lakers are 2-1 on the season against Phoenix.

The game tips off at 7:30 and can be seen nationally on TNT.

RELATED ARTICLES


• A guide to being clutch like Bryant, Fisher (OC Register, March 21, 2011)
• Red-hot Lakers wrap up division with rally past Blazers (ESPN.com, March 20, 2011)
• Kobe Bryant’s revival leads to Lakers’ survival (LA Times Lakers Blog, March 21, 2011)
• Lakers clinch Pacific Division title (OC Register, March 20, 2011)
• Lakers grind out 84-80 victory (LA Times Lakers Blog, March 20, 2011)
• Lakers Gameday: Blazers (Lakers.com, March 20, 2011)
• The seasoned backcourt in its element (ESPN Daily Dime, March 21, 2011)
• Kobe Bryant puts injuries aside (ESPN LA, March 21, 2011)
• Lakers 84, Blazers 80: Postgame videos (ESPN LA, March 21, 2011)
• Derek Fisher on 84-80 victory over Portland Trail Blazers (LA Times, March 21, 2011)
• Lakers Gameday: Timberwolves (Lakers.com, March 18, 2011)