Bad habits come back to bite Lakers in end

It was as if a generation's worth of the Lakers' hubris, a career full of Phil Jackson's smugness and a season's worth of Hollywood-imbued vanity were melded together.

And then, on Sunday afternoon, it all came rolling back at the Lakers in one immense cannonball of comeuppance.

The two-time defending champions were not only swept out of the playoffs by the hitherto heartless Mavericks, they were humiliated.

A 122-86 thrashing ended with two Lakers, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom, being ejected for flagrant fouls and Jackson walking off the court for the last time as their coach.

As the buzzer sounded, a receiving line of Dallas players, coaches and his old foil, owner Mark Cuban, greeted Jackson, who pointed to the crowd as he left the court. He entered the locker room and thanked his team for the ride, led them in the Lord's Prayer and then met with his four children, his agent and a small coterie of friends who flew in for the occasion.

It was an inglorious and -- in many ways -- inconceivable ending for the Lakers and for Jackson, who learned at the start of the day he had been fined by the NBA for criticizing officials.

"This has been a wonderful run," Jackson said.  "I go out with a sour note after being fined $35,000 this morning by the league, so that's not fun having a feeling like I've been chased down the freeway by them. But as Richard Nixon says, `You won't be able to kick this guy around anymore.'"

It was not the finale that any Lakers imagined when Jackson decided last summer that he would return, even if he was unhappy about taking a pay cut.

Jackson's decision was influenced by calls from Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher -- the team captains -- and from a sense of loyalty to his assistants and staff.

While they hoped to send Jackson off with a 12th title, Bryant strived for a sixth ring that would put him even with Michael Jordan.

Though the Miami Heat were the talk of the NBA, the Lakers were the smart money, having every key player back from last season and with free-agent additions Steve Blake and Matt Barnes expected to fortify the bench.

The Lakers did plenty of posing -- Bryant waving his finger and Ron Artest flexing his biceps -- but with the exception of the six weeks after the All-Star break, when the Lakers won 17 of 18 games, they rarely found the form of champions.

They had losing streaks of five games, four games and three games (twice) in the regular season, something they had not done once in the 217 previous games after acquiring Pau Gasol.

What happened Sunday -- and in this series -- was simply an amalgam of bad habits.

Assistant coach Brian Shaw chided Jackson during the season, telling Jackson that he let players get away with more than he ever did when Shaw played on the three championship teams earlier in the decade.

Jackson dismissed the critique, but the team never found its groove in the playoffs.

"I don't know where we lost it, that certain drive, that bond that we've had in the past, the cohesive drive in order to overcome adversity," Odom said. "When I think about this series, when I think about this game, [Dallas] looked like a good team that of course we respect, but their bond on the basketball court was better than ours it seemed like. They were able to come back from 16 [in Game 1], come back from 7 or 8 with three minutes to go [in Game 3] and there was something missing for us."

Odom, who was badly outshined by Terry -- whom he beat out to win the NBA's Sixth Man Award -- acknowledged having second thoughts now about the reality show he filmed late in the season with his wife, Khloe Kardashian.

"I've been able to do so many things, but I would give it all up -- the basketball awards or the recognition -- I would give it all up to be able to play in the championship round," said Odom, who called the defeat a humbling experience.

Others wondered -- whether it was Kobe Bryant's habit of not practicing, Ron Artest's ring raffle or other players' activities away from basketball -- if there were too many distractions all around.

Artest questioned the team's work ethic.

"I think we all need to do some soul searching," said Pau Gasol, who was badly outplayed in the series by Dirk Nowitzki.

It was clear by the second quarter Sunday that the trust issues Bynum had vented about earlier in this series had not been sorted out.

The Lakers cheated off the Mavericks' perimeter players and then scrambled back -- always too late -- to keep them from shooting 3-pointers.  Terry made 9 of 10 3-pointers and Peja Stojakovic made all six of his attempts.

Jackson, once noted -- and mocked -- for rarely calling timeouts, used three in a three-minute span of the second quarter, but it only prolonged the inevitable. By halftime, the Lakers trailed 63-39.

"It was like the roof fell in on us," Jackson said.

With deficit pushing 30 points, Odom put a shoulder into Nowitzki, knocking him to the ground and earning an ejection. Less than a minute later, Bynum was gone, too -- leveling the diminutive J.J. Barea with a flying elbow.

It was a brutal foul, one that is sure to warrant a fine and a suspension. It was also the only time the Lakers stopped Barea, who had 22 points and eight assists.

As he was escorted off court by Ron Artest -- who had been suspended for Game 3 for a flagrant foul -- Bynum pulled off his jersey and joined Odom in the locker room.

"We were getting embarrassed," Bynum said. "So I just fouled somebody."

That embarrassment extended well beyond the locker room. Former Lakers icon Magic Johnson, an analyst for ESPN, said on the eve of Game 4 that the Lakers should be "blown up." But Johnson also happens to be a Lakers president, so the words left some Lakers unnerved or perturbed.

Fisher, asked if the Lakers would be able to rebound from the defeat as they did after losing to Boston in the 2008 Finals, said: "I don't know. Ask Magic what's going to happen."

Johnson suggested trading one of the Lakers' big men -- Bynum, Gasol or Odom -- for Dwight Howard, but why would the Magic do that? And with so many overpriced assets (Artest at 3 years, $21.8 million; Steve Blake at 3 years, $12 million; Luke Walton at 2 years, $11.5 million; and Fisher at 2 years, $6.8 million) it is not much of a hand that General Manager Mitch Kupchak has with which to work.

The last time the Lakers exited this early in the playoffs, Bryant's scorched-earth tirade against Kupchak, owner Jerry Buss and some of his teammates ended with a demand to be traded.

When asked Sunday what the Lakers needed to return to championship form, Bryant demurred.

"That's Mitch's job," he said.

Whether the roster is reshaped with a scalpel or with dynamite, one thing is certain: there will be a new man in charge.

Bryant said that will be strange.

"I grew up under him, so the way I approach things, the way I think about things, a lot of it comes from him," Bryant said. "It's a little weird for me to think about what next year is going to look like."

But, judging from this game, this series and this season, it will not be an unwelcome change.

How can the start of a new era be any worse than the end of an old one?