OK, THAT'S A WRAP. The Jazz sent the bickering, whining, wildly talented Laker kids back to L.A. for the off-season to sort out their problems, visit the family therapist, put a kid or two up for adoption (VanExel?) and find a cure of those air-ball blues. Should be fun.
Heaven help the Jazz if the these kids ever grow up, but that's for another time. The Jazz;s time is now (or never?).They wrapped up their second-round series 4-1 by beating the Lakers 98-93 in overtime Monday night in the Delta Center. So here they are again, back in the Western Conference finals, picking up where they left off three of the last five years. This time they arrived ahead of schedule in a club-record eight games.
The bottom line: The Jazz are four victories from the NBA finals.
The Jazz beat the Lakers and Clippers seven games to one, combined, to get this far. So much for all challengers from Los Angeles. They whipped through L.A. like the Santa Anas and were about as awsome.
The Lakers went out the way they came in, looking a little dazed and confused. In the game's crazy final minutes, it seemed entirely fitting that Robert Horry was in the locker roo, Shaquille O'Neal was on the bench and Kobe Bryant was casting shots into photographers' row.
In the matchup between the youngest team in the league and one of the oldest, the ages on both sides showed, just as it did throughout the series. Score one for experience, maturity and the thirtysomething crowd. Yough was served. . .a loss.
Faced with elimination, the Lakers gamely took the Jazz to the limit Monday, but then they started acting their age. The Lakers chose to place their fate in the hands of Bryant, who is all of 18 years old. He shot four airballs. Four. One at the end of regulation. One at the start of overtime. Two to end the game. Whoosh, nothin' but air.
"Kobe is a young guy and it is all new," 35-year-old John Stockton observed.
So new that during a break in theaction near the end of regulation, with the tension and the crowd raging, the wide-eyed Bryant told 34-year-old Jeff Hornacek that he was excited just to participate in such a game. How refreshing.
"This is what it's all about," he told hornacek with a smile.
Whatever it was about, Bryant couldn't handle it, but at least he was around for the ending. The Lakers self-destructed again, victims of their own youthful mistakes. Horry was ejected in the third quarter for pushing Hornacek in the face. Hornacek's offense? He was trying to restrain Horry from joining a confrontation between Shaquille O'Neal and Karl Malone. Speaking of O'Neal, he fouled out with 1:46 left in the game and his team ahead 87-84.
It was the second time in this five-game series that O'Neal wasn't around to help his team at the end of a game. He was ejected from Game 3 for two technicals.
Imagine that. Shaq is getting paid $120 million ot do what a bus driver does - sit.
Meanwhile, two Oldies-But-Goodies, Stockton and Malone, operated with the cool of surgeon. Malone had 32 points - one shy of his age - and 20 rebounds, but it was his little partner who took charge of the ending.
Stockton, a savvy veteran; of 12 years, had had a quiet series, which prompted the old he's-too-old talk again, but with Game 5 on the line Monday, he was simply the best player on the court. He totaled 24 points and 10 assists, made 11 of 13 shots and scored nine of this team's last 11 points in regulation.
"Once the overtime came, the experience showed," said Hornacek.
The Jazz wone this series because they are the better team, but also because they acted their age, and so did the Lakers, from Game 1 to Game 5.
When the Lakers lost, Nick Van Exel kicked a scoring table and the Lakers blamed the referee. Afterward, Shaq and Van Exel bent the officials' ears and the Lakers held a team sulk - to talking to the media.
When the Jazz lost, they went for a bike ride and regrouped.
When the Lakers lost, Shaw griped about not being treated like an all-star, and Van Exel cussed at his coach and sulked on the bench after getting pulled from the game.
When the Jazz lost, they went to the beach. The called home and commiserated with family.
When the Lakers faced adversity, Horry sulked, Shaq and Horry were ejected, Elden Campbell disappeared, Van Exel blamed the coach and speculated this year would be his last with the Lakers. The Lakers were in such disarray that they didn't even know who their team captain was.
When the Jazz faced adversity, they joked about it. "You stunk," Stockton told Malone after the Game 2 stinker. "You did, too," replied Malone. Two days later they crushed the Lakers in the Forum.
During a late timeout Monday, coach Jerry Sloan told the Jazz, It's your turn to win. He meant the game, but he could have been speaking as well of the Jazz's long-awaited turn to win the title.
After the game, O'Neal complained about failing to win the championship again. "This is my fifth time failing," said O'Neal, who is all of 25, "and I'm getting tired of going home early."
The Jazz know how he feels. Their advice: Get in line.