It Isn’t Easy as ABC for the Lakers

Some of the biggest and most famous names in American sports were enlisted for precisely this event.

Gary Payton and Karl Malone were brought by the Lakers to win the NBA Finals.

Al Michaels was brought in by ABC to call them.

So far -- and time is all but out for the Lakers’ aging mercenaries -- only one is getting the job done.

This time a year ago, the Lakers and ABC had pretty much the same relationship with the NBA Finals. To get back to them in 2004 and get it right, both franchises needed to make some changes.

On paper, the Lakers and ABC worked a similar strategy: They went out and recruited some well-known proven veteran talent by offering the same lure as a prize. Payton and Malone had never won the NBA Finals. Michaels had never broadcast the NBA Finals. For all three, it was the missing link in otherwise impressive resumes.

Not surprisingly, all three jumped at the chance.

Four games into a Laker-Piston series that might not last longer than five, here is the status report:

* Malone, limited by a bad knee, can’t jump, can’t run and won’t shoot.

* Payton, limited by a bad attitude, can’t do much of anything.

* Michaels, at courtside as well as above the NFL’s Monday night sidelines, remains a franchise player.

Last June, the NBA Finals on ABC drew the lowest average rating -- 6.5 -- since they became a prime-time viewing event in 1982. A big part of the problem was the matchup, San Antonio versus New Jersey, which was viewed as a prime-time event only in San Antonio and New Jersey. But ABC’s broadcast team of Brad Nessler, Bill Walton and Tom Tolbert didn’t help matters.

If the performance on the floor didn’t feel up to past Finals standards, neither did the activity behind the microphones. Everything about the series lacked punch, a reason for neutral fans to tune in -- and having Mike Tirico put on a foam-rubber Incredible Hulk fist to plug Disney’s lineup of summer movies wasn’t the answer.

“Let’s Get It Started?” In 2003, the people’s motto for ABC’s Finals coverage was “Let’s Get It Over.”

Ratings are up in 2004, mostly attributable to the Lakers’ presence. At first, fans were tuning in to watch the Lakers add another banner to the Staples Center collection. Now, they’re tuning in to watch the Lakers lose. The overnight rating for Sunday’s Game 4 was 14.4 -- a 66% improvement over the 8.7 mark Game 4 of the 2003 Finals managed.

Michaels’ presence has contributed as well. The voice of hockey miracles and Super Bowls past, Michaels has lent an immediate big-game credibility to ABC’s proceedings. He affects a basketball game the same way the Pat Summerall-John Madden team once raised the voltage for NFL games on CBS and Fox. You hear that voice and instantly the sense of this-is-important draws you in to the broadcast.

Michaels has made the people around him better, an uncommon ability that continues to escape, say, Kobe Bryant. Tolbert, much better cast this year as an on-site studio analyst, was starting to sound crazed near the end of Game 4, proclaiming the Detroit Pistons “a better basketball team [than the Lakers]. They have more depth. They have more options to score. They’re better defensively. They’re a better team.”

Easy for him to say now. Why was no one making these points, or anything remotely close, before Game 1?

Quickly and smoothly, Michaels moved in to lend Tolbert an assist by adding, “And who in the world would have thought any of those things a week ago today?”

From the start, Michaels’ chemistry with analyst Doc Rivers has been a more comfortable fit than his much ballyhooed “Monday Night Football” pairing with Madden. Sometimes, as we have been reminded about 103 times this Laker season, “dream teams” never look better than the way they look on paper.

ABC got lucky, and unlucky, with Michaels-Rivers. After the tough trial-and-error of 2002-2003, ABC put together a tandem that works, but it won’t work for much longer. As soon as this series ends, Rivers is off to Boston to coach the Celtics. He and Michaels are one-and-done, with ABC soon headed back to the drawing board.

They can be funny, without forcing it. (“SportsCenter” anchors, please note.) After ABC aired a few moments’ feed from a Philippines broadcast team at the Finals on Sunday, Michaels observed, “Doc, that’s not bad.... In some places, they can win an Emmy.”

Rivers: “You can understand half of it. Sounds like us.”

They can be critical, without screaming and losing a coherent train of thought. (Stephen A. Smith, please note.) Discussing the possible motivation behind Laker Coach Phil Jackson’s complaints to the media between Games 3 and 4 about the officiating, Michaels noted that he found it “a little odd that, down two games to one, he would start moaning about the refereeing.”

Rivers: “You have to remember -- Phil Jackson has never been down, 2-1, in the Finals.”

Michaels: “He has not.... But isn’t there a reverse side of that, Doc? You flip off the guys in the striped shirts?”

Rivers: “Oh, no doubt. And you give the players on your team an out ... to complain to the officials instead of playing.”

In a nutshell, that was pretty much Game 4 for the Lakers.

Not only are the Pistons out-executing the Lakers, so is ABC. Through three Laker defeats, Michaels has refrained from trading on his most famous play-by-play call, although it might become appropriate if and when the Lakers lose to Detroit a fourth time.

Do you believe in debacles?

Yes!