Mike Celizic

It wasn’t the non-call on Derek Fisher that lost the game for the Spurs. And it wasn’t exactly Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Fisher shucking the “weenie” label slapped on them by their coach, Phil Jackson, that won it for the Lakers.

The conspiracy theorists — you know, the ones who are convinced the NBA is bound and determined to conjure up a Lakers-Celtics final — will have a ball with the collision between Fisher and Brent Barry in the game’s final second. It was major contact, and everybody in the Alamo Dome, including the Lakers’ bench, was expecting one of the three refs to blow a whistle. But there was no call and Barry’s desperation heave was badly off the mark and the Lakers were going home with a 3-1 series lead.

But let’s be honest about this one. The Lakers didn’t win on a non-call. They won on the back of the kind of performance that championship teams produce when nothing less will do. On a night when Kobe Bryant put it up 29 times without taking a single trip to the free-throw line, a night when Tim Duncan went off for 29 points and 17 rebounds for the Spurs, a night when Fisher and Gasol scored just 19 points between them, the Lakers found a way to win the game that just may have put this series out of San Antonio’s reach.

That’s how championships are won, and you just have to wonder if the Pistons and the Celtics were watching and maybe taking a few notes. This was the kind of statement game that neither of those teams has been able to come up with.

You want to know why the Lakers won? How about five more offensive rebounds and nine more rebounds overall? How about hitting eight more field goals than the Spurs, many of them on second-chance possessions? How about coming out on the road and plain sticking it to the Spurs in the early going?

Early leads have a habit of disappearing. But if you want to win a big road game, a great way to start is by coming out with more intensity and piling up a lead before the home team settles into the game. The Lakers did that, running out to a 22-8 lead in the first six or seven minutes of the game.

There’s no such thing as a safe lead in an NBA game, especially in the first quarter. The Spurs got close and finally tied the game several times in the second half, but the Lakers never let them get the basket that would have put the Spurs in the lead and ignited the home crowd.

That was just gutty and determined defense — that boring stuff that actually wins games. And when the Lakers needed stops, they got them.

Jackson had exhorted Fisher, Odom and Gasol to be more aggressive offensively, and at times they were. But for the most part, they deferred to Bryant, as the Lakers have tended to do.

But all three of the weenie bunch made their shots count. They shot a collective 12-of-23 and Odom hit 8-of-9 from the line.

It was all more than enough, and the only reason the Spurs had a chance to tie or win on that final non-call was because Bryant made a really dumb decision by going for a tough shot instead of running down the clock in the final minute of play. It’s not one he’s likely to make again.

Slide show The second season Slide show: Top images from the 2008 NBA playoffs. NBCSports.com

The Spurs know that. They also have to know that if they play the same game again on Thursday in the Staples Center, they’re not going to win it. That’s because the Spurs aren’t going to get seven more free throws than the Lakers. And if San Antonio figures it has to do better than 7-of-24 from behind the 3-point line, the Lakers have to know they’ll do better than 3-for-14.

The Spurs can blame the non-call if they want to, but there’s no future in it. It is whatever the refs say it is, and they said the play wasn’t a foul. There’s no time to dwell on it, not when there’s another game to play that can end in elimination for the defending champs.

Unlike the Celtics and the Pistons, the Lakers seem to understand what it takes to win, even when everything isn’t going exactly according to plan. They went into a tough building and got a hard-fought victory by chasing down loose balls and dominating the boards and playing defense and hitting the shots they needed to stay ahead.

That’s not weenie ball, it’s championship ball.

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