Lakers exploit Parker's shortcoming

By Terry Brown
NBA Insider
Monday, May 17
Updated: May 17
2:12 PM ET

Winning cures everything, from the bottom of Rasheed Wallace's aching feet to the tip of Ron Artest's mangled fingers.

Winning in the playoffs means Derek Fisher, a point guard averaging 1.5 assists per game this postseason, will be forever remembered for his 0.04 heroics, instead.

But what if the Detroit Pistons had been eliminated Sunday night? What if the Indiana Pacers lose Tuesday night to force a Game 7 against a team that won 19 fewer games than they did during the regular season? What if Fisher's shot had rimmed out with the contracts of four Laker starters and the head coach about to expire?

Well, then we'd have a whole different list of 2004 semifinal playoff casualties, scapegoats and disappearing acts, wouldn't we?

Here they are in reverse alphabetical order.

At least that's how they did it when cutting players during high school.

Tayshaun Prince, Detroit Pistons
First 6 playoff games: 17 ppg, 8 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1 spg, 1.8 bpg, 59.4% shooting
Last 5 playoff games: 7.6 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1 spg, 1.2 bpg, 27.5% shooting
Once the playoff darling, now the ugly duckling. POOF! And he wouldn't have even scored six points Sunday night if head coach Larry Brown hadn't threatened to sit him next to Darko Milicic on the bench if he didn't shoot the dang ball. An airball would have done. Even a pump fake. Brown didn't care if he made the shot or not. He just wanted to make sure the kid still had a pulse after being outscored by Richard Jefferson 122 to 38 since opening night of this series.

Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs
First 6 playoff games: 22.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 8 apg, 1.5 spg, 0 bpg, 51.5% shooting
Last 4 playoff games: 12.5 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 5.5 apg, 1 spg, 0.2 bpg, 31% shooting

Parker
The postseason began with San Antonio fans blessing the day Jason Kidd re-signed with the New Jersey Nets, leaving Parker as the sole starting point guard on the roster. They were ready to throw him a parade, shower him with confetti and start naming streets after the young Frenchman. Just look at him run. It ended with Tim Duncan answering questions about being the only star on the team with no one to turn to for help and no one even needed to whisper Kidd's name to know what they were talking about. Parker could beat the Lakers on the drive. He could beat the Lakers off the pick. Then the Lakers wanted to see if he could simply stand still and beat them while starring them in the eye. No wonder this kid felt all alone out there on the perimeter heaving up unguarded jumpers and praying for company. With no more games to play this season, we have learned that he is nothing if not in motion.

Michael Olowokandi, Minnesota Timberwolves
First 2 playoff games: 6 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 0 apg, 0 spg, 1 bpg, 66% shooting
Last 8 playoff games: 0.7 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 0.2 apg, 0.2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 20% shooting
As bad as Olowokandi started, he was still better than the struggling Rasho Nesterovic at 5.5 points per game for the Spurs . . . right? He was still better than Ervin Johnson at 3.2 points per game for the playoffs . . . right? Well, after two consecutive DNP-CDs, the answer is no. And for the sake of this list, we took his averages in the six games and spread them over eight to include those two bench-warming stints. It has now been seven days since he has scored a playoff point and nine days since his last playoff rebound and a whole other life since he averaged 12 points and nine rebounds a game for the Clippers.


Jason Kidd, right, has had his struggles maneuvering around the Pistons' defense.
Jason Kidd, New Jersey Nets
Versus Knicks: 17 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 9 apg, 2.2 spg, 0.7 bpg, 44% shooting
Versus Pistons: 11.8 ppg, 7 rpg, 9.3 apg, 2.1 spg, 0.5 bpg, 31.2% shooting
About to go from team captain to team caddy for Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson. And it's not the poor shooting. It's not the fact that he's still taking the third-most shots on the team while being the fourth-leading scorer. In the overtime victory over the Pistons in Game 5, the Nets won not because of him but despite him. From the final five minutes of regulation (with the score tied 77-77) to final buzzer of the third overtime, the Nets scored 50 points. In those 20 minutes, Kidd totaled six points on 2-for-6 shooting while also missing two free throws in the final 11 seconds of regulation and committing three 24-second shot clock violations. For the series, he is shooting 31.2 percent. For the playoffs, he is committing 4.1 turnovers per game. For the record, the aura is gone.

Eddie Jones, Miami Heat
First 6 playoff games: 16.1 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 1.5 apg, 1 spg, 1.3 bpg, 40% shooting
Last 6 playoff games: 9.8 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3 apg, 2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 34.6% shooting
This might not be so bad if the young free agent pickup wasn't leading the Heat in every statistical category that the young draft pick wasn't. But this team now belongs to Lamar Odom and Dwyane Wade, and there's nothing that the veteran Jones can do about it despite the fact that his salary ($12.3 million this season) makes up 27 percent of their entire payroll. As Odom and Wade have gotten better, Jones has gotten worse and now he's even looking up at Caron Butler in the scoring column and all of the starters in the rebounding column. Very quickly becoming a 3-point specialist out of respect for what he has done and not for what he can do.

Al Harrington, Indiana Pacers
Versus Celtics: 14.5 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 1.8 apg, 3.2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 51% shooting
Versus Heat: 7.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 0.6 apg, 0.6 spg, 1 bpg, 40.5% shooting
The question isn't whether Harrington can play the game well. The question is whether he can play the game well when Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest are doing the same. In other words, can he be that third-best player who puts the Pacers over the top? In the Pacers' first-round series, with O'Neal scoring a pedestrian 19 a game and Artest shooting 30 percent when not suspended, Harrington led the starters in rebounding, field goal percentage and steals while placing third in scoring while coming off the bench. But while O'Neal and Artest have recovered to the tune of 24 points per game and 42 percent shooting, respectively, Harrington has fallen to fifth on the team in scoring, fourth in rebounding and fifth in steals while shooting 40 percent from the field as the team, as a whole, shoots 45 percent.

Rick Fox, Los Angeles Lakers
First 3 playoff games: 0 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 1.6 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.6 bpg, 0% shooting
Last 8 playoff games: 0.3 ppg, 0.1 rpg, 0.3 apg, 0.1 spg, 0 bpg, 100% shooting
Fox has always been the consummate role player, guarding the other team's best perimeter player, content with a couple 3-pointers per series and happy to be on the arm of Vanessa Williams. He got the girl. He got the role. He got game. But somewhere between the credits of their last championship run and the opening curtain of this one, he forgot his lines. Now he's a cheerleader with a bad haircut. And he hasn't even been in a game for more than six minutes since April 23.

Vlade Divac, Sacramento Kings
First games of series: 13 ppg, 4 rpg, 2 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.5 bpg, 73% shooting
Other playoff games: 5.1 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 2 apg, 0.2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 34.6% shooting
There are a finite number of games left within Divac and a finite number of matchups in which he is effective. The Sacramento Kings can only hope that if he didn't reach both of those points on April 18, the opening game of their series with the Mavericks, or on May 4, the opening game of their series with the Timberwolves. Because he has a total of eight points in the two games following opening night after tallying 26 the games before and it's downhill from there. In the final game versus the Mavs, he played four minutes. In the last game against the Timberwolves, he had two turnovers, two fouls and four rebounds as the starting center.