There is a myriad of ways in which “Titanic” is considerably more awesome than you think it is. Watching “Titanic” is watching a colossal comedy of errors take place. My favorite moment of the entire film is after Jack gets done tapping Ms. Fancy Pants in the back of the car, they rush out and hear the crew talking to the captain and engineer going over where the ship has flooded. Leo pauses, in an all-too Keanu way, and says,

“This is bad.”

I crack up, every single time.

(“Haha, it’s funny because hundreds of people died long enough ago to where it’s not insensitive.” See, now I feel bad.)

What I’m getting at is that it’s a movie about folly. Jack and Rose thinking this is actually going to work out. The Captain thinking it’s totally fine to push ahead through iceberg-infested waters at full-speed. The promoter thinking that he can just jinx anything to that degree. The engineer thinking that his eminently obviously avoidable mistakes won’t come back to hurt him. The Bro thinking he can contain a woman who obviously doesn’t want to be with him. And the Los Angeles Lakers of the film, the Bourgeois wandering around a sinking hunk of steel dropping into icy, unsurvivable waters complaining about luggage, comfort, and a chill.

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The lame passengers are primarily scenery in the flick. Molly Brown stands out in contrast, and they’re used in relation to the plight of the poor (who of course we love much more because they drink and dance and party, even though that cargo hold most likely stank like a hobo’s bad place and those kids were probably getting bartered in dice games). They’re stuck-up, they’re self-entitled, and they’re completely oblivious to the idea of danger.

Yeah, that guy. When Bryant made the “trippin’” line, you knew they were screwed. You have to recognize trouble. Everyone’s so consumed with not panicking, they wind up ignoring danger. It’s disassociating yourself from the reality of the situation to focus on something external. In this case, it was the Lakers disassociating themselves from the reality that the Mavericks were kicking the hell out of them and they had no answers by focusing on the media “overreacting” to said struggles.

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You know who I hate in “Titanic?” The Goddamn quartet. You love them the first, oh, fifty times you see the flick. It’s such a nice, quiet moment when they decide to keep playing. But you know what? You’re not better than everyone else. When the boat rips in half and starts sinking into the ocean, those sons of bitches were beating people out of their way with bows. You think you’re helping with the music? THE GIANT STEEL BOAT IS SINKING INTO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. YOU ARE NOT HELPING. YOU’RE JUST PROVIDING A POIGNANT SOUNDTRACK TO A FULL SCALE RIOT.

The Lakers’ constant insistence throughout the season that they were fine, that there was nothing to worry about, that they would turn it on? All quartet music. Keep it lively while we half-fill the boats. Keep relying on the fact you’ve done this twice before so naturally you’ll do it a third time without trying. And that’s really what they did. The May disaster was written in January and February. Three-game losing streaks, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but were because they hadn’t happened under Phil. The losing streaks in and of themselves weren’t a problem, the reaction to them was. “Oh, it’s no big deal.” You have to respond to those little embarrassments with vengeance and anger.  You have to become livid at your malaise and react with outrage bordering on violence (as opposed to Game 4′s flagrant-fest, which was violence bordering on outrage). Instead, the Lakers sloughed it off. One member of the organization told me in February, “When you’re contending for a three-peat, and you’re just months removed from the intensity of a Game 7 against your franchise rival, getting yourself mentally “up” for a mid-season game against a small market, no-flash team is tough. They just don’t care enough about these games.”

The problem was that set a precedent. That was the engineer electing to halve the lifeboats. It was “EJ” electing to listen to the promoter and not respond with caution. It was Snooty McSnooterson saying outloud, on a ship he was on, “God himself could not sink this ship.” Had the attitude changed, maybe the Lakers would have gotten the top seed. Maybe they would have been better prepared for Game 1. Maybe they would have responded better in Game 2, or gotten themselves together in Game 3. But at the end of the day, you can only blame the people involved in “Titanic” so much. Because in reality, how were they really supposed to stop what happened. They just ran into a gigantic freaking iceberg.

The Dallas Mavericks.

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It may not have been as simple as “try harder.” There may not have been anything they could do. Sometimes, teams just shoot like that.

In March 2009, I was talking to Graydon Gordian about what if the NBA did have a one-and-done NCAA style tournament, who would win. And both of us said the same thing. “Orlando. Definitely Orlando.” Orlando had been outrageously hot from the perimeter that year. They simply worked so hard to create open 3-pointers, and had such a deep team of shooters, you couldn’t do much. Orlando got hot from the arc, and you could just pencil it in. Boston found the same thing. Yes, Kevin Garnett, blah, blah blah. My point is not that Garnett wouldn’t have been the difference in the series, he likely would have been. My point is that he really didn’t need to be. The Celtics could have beaten the Magic without Garnett, had Orlando not worked so hard to produce quality 3-pointers, and had the personnel to knock them down, and had that collective core been on fire, right up until June 1st.

(Ironically, this season was also what caused the downfall of the Magic. In 2010, they set a record for made three pointers, but only shot 37.5%. That’s 95th best in league history, which is still marginally impressive, but it also reflected a change from the 53rd ranked all-time 2009 team (who shot a whopping .6% better, but bear with me). The 2010 team made 24 more 3-pointers than the 2009 team, but attempted 94 more of them. The Magic stopped working for the best 3-pointer and started just shooting the available 3-pointer. In 2009, the team was made of the kings of the extra pass. In 2010 and 2011, the team resorted to just taking the first open 3 that came their way. The ball rotation wasn’t perfect. It was passable. The shots were makeable, but they weren’t wide freaking open. Personally, I blame Vince Carter, even though it is clearly not his fault.)

The Mavericks had that kind of mojo in the second round. Jason Terry’s barrage in Game 4 was just the icing on the cake. The Mavericks went out in Game 1 and shot the lights out. Then they decided if they had done it once, they could do it again. And again. And again. The Lakers didn’t react or adjust to this, because, let’s face it, Phil Jackson and the mighty Lakers would never deign to adjust to someone else’s gameplan. Lest you forget how Doc Rivers with a worse team than in 2010 completely worked over the Lakers in 2008 by making key adjustments. If the Lakers can’t out-muscle, out-tall, out-talent you, they have no second option. And they get frustrated and cranky, instead of focused and determined. They’re so worried about not panicking, they never respond to the aggression. In years past they had enough talent to overcome eventually. They were bigger, they were taller, they could tip shots in and rely on their talent being better. The Mavericks were talented enough, and meaner, and tougher, and not only wanted it more, but had something none of the other teams that came close to upsetting the Lakers in previous years (your Suns, Nuggets, Rockets, and Thunder): they had the experience to know how to take their foot, place it on the Lakers’ neck, and not squeeze, but stomp the hell out it until it was completely broken.

So in the end, while some Laker fans were pleading for the team to respond, sweating and wringing their hands, many fans, and the team itself, was too busy worrying about its luggage, or how cramped it would be, or if they would be serving tea on the deck. Sure, the Lakers saw the rats running. But they had  no idea what it meant.

 

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AFTERWORD: The 2010 Lakers were an unstoppable juggernaut, and I continue to believe that even if Kendrick Perkins had not injured his knee, the Lakers would have triumphed. The Celtics played above an already high ceiling that year, and the Lakers were much more in tune with their actual ability. Phil Jackson is the most successful head coach of all time, and walks away considered the greatest head coach of all time by people a lot smarter than I am. This Laker core is not a failure. It has two championships. So don’t consider this piece an indictment of this era (which may not be closed, though, Mike Brown, really?). It’s merely trying to put this particular team’s failures in perspective.

Kobe Bryant’s play in 2009 was the best basketball I’ve ever seen him play. He was flawless. That he moved so far away from that in 2011 to me was an indication of what I’d heard from people in L.A. before the season started. One person close to the organization told me that the trainers had indicated to the coaching staff that Bryant would be unable to deliver his usual production, and that the coaching staff should likely talk to him to make sure he worked in the flow of the team. Bryant’s overall statistical production was far from deficient. But there were more times this season when fans were left flabbergasted at his inability to close a game, or create space, or hit the impossible shot, and some of the smarter fans were even more aghast when he seemingly deliberately responded to these struggles by electing for more difficult, worse shots. Bryant can get healthy and produce another MVP-level season. But the decline has begun, and if no one can stand up to him, his pride will not let him do anything but fail and then shoot for two hours in front of an awe-inspired media and then continue to shoot them out of games. Bryant’s unable to remember past mistakes. He’s too focused on killing whatever is next in his way.

The Lakers organization is clearly moving in different directions, branching away from Phil Jackson’s work within the team. And by “branching away” I mean “putting all the stuff he left into a trashcan and lighting it on fire while drinking scotch from the bottle and singing Semisonic.” Maybe this will work out. After all, it’s always worked out for them. Each time the team has hit a rough patch, it responds with an era of dominance based on its ability to bring in the best talent. Maybe that’s Dwight Howard. Maybe that’s Chris Paul. But this colossal and monumental failure of a Lakers team is only really notable because of the franchise’s historical and consistent superiority. They’ll be back. And maybe next time, they’ll learn the cost of hubris from the 2011 team.