While Jackson held his meeting, Skiles and his coaching staff weren’t idle after returning to their hotel. They also gathered to review the game. That was the nature of a head coach—every single game required a breakdown of strengths and weaknesses to plug any leaks. They did this not just for crucial playoff matchups, but even for key regular-season games. They didn’t merely evaluate their own tactical execution, pinpointing who underperformed and how to improve. They also put themselves in their opponent’s shoes, anticipating adjustments and devising countermeasures. This latter point dominated their current discussion.
The Phoenix Suns executed their game plan exceptionally well. They double-teamed Kobe decisively, and their switching and help defense arrived right on time. They didn’t bleed too many points from blown coverages. The stats backed this up: they gave up only seventeen points on open looks resulting from double-teams. That was an entirely acceptable number.
"It still comes down to Kobe," Skiles said in a low voice.
In his view, the Lakers lost the game for two main reasons. Aside from failing to contain Nowitzki, Kobe’s shot selection was poor. He played selfishly in the clutch, and his earlier forced shots were highly inefficient, squandering numerous offensive possessions. To Skiles, Kobe was a double-edged sword—he won them games, but he also lost them.
"Like you guys said, getting Kobe to pass more and make smarter decisions with the ball is impossible. Phil won’t do that either."
The Lakers built themselves around star power to their very core. Playing in a massive market under the glaring spotlight, they thrived on the superstar narrative—the hero saving the world. Teamwork and self-sacrifice for the sake of victory simply didn’t fly in Los Angeles. Therefore, no matter how many bricks Kobe laid or how inefficient he was, the team had to let him shoot. Otherwise, the fans rioted, and the owner grew furious. When Kobe struggled, the fans never blamed him; they just assumed the offensive scheme was flawed and didn’t give him enough touches. Fans were unreasonable like that. So, even though Jackson knew Kobe needed to play smarter and pass more—and even though Kobe possessed solid passing skills—he never forced the issue.
"Of course, we can’t rule out Kobe changing on his own," Skiles added. "Over the past two years, as Chen puts it, he’s matured quite a bit."
Kobe was no longer the reckless hothead he was a few years ago. But the core issue remained: Kobe could choose to adapt, but Jackson couldn’t demand it of him.
Boylan and Frank Johnson exchanged a glance. "Scott, you’re getting better and better at reading player psychology," Boylan teased. "Looks like all those psychology books you’ve been reading the past couple of years are really paying off."
Perhaps influenced by Chen Yu, Skiles took to reading psychology books in his spare time over the last two years. Skiles shrugged. "I can’t help it. To this day, I still haven’t forgotten how we dealt with the Lakers during our first championship run."
The others nodded in agreement. That season, the Phoenix Suns employed psychological warfare to exacerbate the friction between Kobe and O’Neal, ultimately eliminating the Lakers. This indirectly led to O’Neal leaving Los Angeles, paving the way for the Phoenix Suns’ three-peat dynasty.
"So we’re sticking to the same game plan for the next matchup," Skiles said grimly. "We double-team Kobe. Even if Artest drops thirty or forty points and we lose, I’ll accept it."
Anyone else could score, but not Kobe. Skiles knew full well that Kobe was as stubborn as a mule and fiercely proud. Tell him he couldn’t do something, and he charged headlong into it. But as a guard facing double-teams from elite defenders like Marion and Poseidon, he simply couldn’t achieve the unstoppable dominance of someone like O’Neal.
The coaches nodded. They could accept dying by someone else’s hand, but not Kobe’s.
After a brief moment of idle banter to decompress, Frank Johnson spoke up again. "Scott, do you think the Lakers will abandon their defense on Dirk and just try to outscore us?"
They debated this for quite a while. No matter how they looked at it, the Lakers possessed no answer for Nowitzki. Nowitzki’s current playstyle was too unique. He wasn’t just an average player; he was a top-tier superstar with outstanding individual talent. On top of that, the Phoenix Suns’ entire offensive scheme revolved around him, constantly manufacturing shooting opportunities for him. The Lakers simply lacked the personnel to contain him. In this scenario, their only path to victory was to ignore him and try to produce a more efficient offense, winning via a shootout. If you couldn’t stop your opponent, you outgunned them. The league already saw a successful precedent for this. That was exactly what the Pioneer did!
Skiles nodded in agreement, feeling this was Jackson’s most likely solution. Sometimes, you just couldn’t make bricks without clay; without the right personnel, you were helpless. When faced with an unsolvable problem, a team resorted to the simplest method: pure offense.
"Which is exactly why it’s even more imperative that we shut Kobe down completely," Skiles said.
Outside of Kobe, no one on the Lakers possessed the lethal scoring ability to bury a team. So what if a role player occasionally scraped together twenty or thirty points? Their ceiling was fixed. Just feeding them the ball didn’t automatically translate into a mindless fifty-point explosion. If it did, scoring records wouldn’t be so rare. By locking down Kobe, they capped the Lakers’ offensive potential.
"As for pushing the tempo, I don’t think they can pull it off. Yao has decent speed, but playing the way the Pioneer do is beyond him."
Given his massive frame, Yao Ming was already surprisingly agile. Expecting him to sprint end-to-end, run fast breaks, and push transition offense would practically kill him. He already struggled with stamina issues; quickening the pace would only drain his energy faster.
"Plus, their three-point shooting isn’t good enough. You can’t just replicate the Pioneer’s system on a whim."
The run-and-gun offense was highly complex, demanding exceptional spatial awareness and off-ball movement from its players. How long did it take the Pioneer to perfect it? The Lakers couldn’t just flip a switch and run it overnight. Even if you implanted a second brain into Fisher’s head, he still wouldn’t pass like Nash.
"That’s all for tonight. It’s getting late; let’s get some sleep." Skiles glanced at the clock. It was already past midnight.
Whether their plan worked or not, the die was cast. Even if they actually lost the next game, stealing one win out of two road games was already an excellent outcome. The Phoenix Suns seized the initiative. If their opponents made a move, they simply countered it.
The following day, the Los Angeles media fell completely silent.
This kind of defeat was a bitter pill for them to swallow. The only excuse they mustered was that the Lakers had too much rest and came out rusty. Besides, it was just one game in a long series. Did a single win or loss really matter? It was all about who had the last laugh. Reading these reports from afar in Phoenix, Chen Yu could only shake his head. The Los Angeles media was just as stubbornly unyielding as the Lakers were arrogant.
Chen Yu was highly optimistic about the Phoenix Suns in this series. He increasingly felt that their roster naturally countered the Lakers. It was practically a clash of basketball philosophies, and the Phoenix Suns held the upper hand. An interior player—a towering power forward over seven feet tall—roaming the perimeter and punishing opponents with pinpoint shooting? In the eighties or nineties, that was unimaginable. Any head coach back then would scream at a player for trying such a thing.
If a power forward could do it, what about a center? Sure, there were a few unconventional centers in the league who stepped out and launched three-pointers. But that was just icing on the cake; their primary duty remained protecting the rim. Imagine a center who was taller, stronger, and possessed elite athleticism. Someone who could shoot over the heads of guards on the perimeter, yet retreat to the paint to protect the rim and snatch rebounds. In today’s league, wouldn’t a player like that be just as unstoppable as Nowitzki? It was just a passing thought for Chen Yu. The physical demands for such a center were astronomical. It seemed impossible to ever develop a player like that.
After a day’s rest, Game 2 tipped off.
Just as Chen Yu predicted, Jackson failed to conjure up any effective schemes to neutralize Nowitzki. The Phoenix Suns, meanwhile, stuck to their guns, throwing everything they had at double-teaming Kobe. When Chen Yu saw Kobe furiously driving left and right through the double-teams, contorting his body for incredibly high-difficulty fadeaway jumpers, he knew the Phoenix Suns were likely going to win.
Sure enough, Kobe went 4-for-19 from the field, finishing with a mere 13 points. Even though Yao Ming exploded for 32 points and Artest chipped in 21, the Lakers still suffered a 98-94 defeat, losing by four points. Nowitzki delivered another steady performance, dropping 32 points of his own. Crucially, he was ruthlessly efficient, shooting a blistering 61 percent from the floor!
Dropping two consecutive home games to fall behind 2-0—at that moment, absolute panic gripped the fans and media across Los Angeles. In a sudden flash, they remembered the paralyzing dread of being dominated by the Phoenix Suns in the West over the past two years.

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