Derek Fisher seems to have a knack for giving the Los Angeles Lakers what they need, when they need it.
Time and time again, Fish has hit shots that have won games for the Lakers and broke the backs of their opponents.
On Wednesday night, in a much-needed game against the Phoenix Suns, No. 2 was at it again, hitting the dagger shot in a 99-95 Lakers win over their closest divisional rival.
Momentum was on Phoenix’s side after a 9-2 run shrank the Laker lead. Phoenix had it at five with less than a minute to go as the Lakers pushed the ball back up court.
LA rotated it around the floor with every player in purple and gold touching the rock. The ball movement got Fish a look in the corner, but as his man came to contest, Derek used a beautiful ball-fake to lose the defender. Wide-open now, he popped off with a mid-range jumper that swished and iced a win over the division rivals.
"That’s my man," Kobe Bryant told the LA Times. "Everybody knows our story. That’s my dude."
Fish also added two steals in the victory.
KEEPING PERSPECTIVE
Wednesday’s win gave the Lakers a much-needed boost in what’s been a tumultuous few weeks.
The Lakers, who have now won four of their last five, recently followed up a five-game winning streak with a three-game losing skid and questions arose. But twelve years in the NBA teach caution, perspective and patience, all of which Fish has in spades.
Veteran NBA scribe Michael Wilbon of ESPN.com noticed just that in a recent interview with No. 2:
"Derek Fisher is maybe the most reasoned person in sports. His forecasts and assessments about the Lakers specifically, pro basketball generally, are right on the money historically. And Fisher says that although the Lakers are not about to sleepwalk through the regular season content to finish fourth or fifth in the Western Conference, Jackson, more than any other coach in the NBA, realizes the pace that has to be kept given that the core group of his team, unlike any other in the league, has played in three consecutive championship rounds."
All those extra games (67 over the last three seasons) bring a measure of fatigue to the team and Fish said that the Lakers can deal with a few losses now if it means they’ll feel fresh in crunch time. He also noted that winning an NBA championship doesn’t have anything to do with how many regular season games you win:
"Only one of our championship teams shot out there and won more than 65 games," he told Wilbon. "That’s not been the way we approached it. Even when Shaq was here, we’d have him coming back from offseason surgery and win 57, 58 games."
There’s no doubt Fish takes losses seriously, but he recently told the San Bernardino Sun that the Lakers current up-and-down slate is the result of some minor kinks and not wholesale issues with the team.
"It seems really big right now, but we have to just start plugging away at things one at a time," Derek reasoned. "Make a few more free throws. Get a couple more rebounds. Get one or two more defensive stops. Make one or two more shots. Combine all those things together and then you’ll start to see things turn around."
SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR
Such stoicism, an unflappable trait of No. 2, is one of the reasons Derek was just awarded the 2010 Sportsman of the Year award from the Los Angeles Sports Council.
The award is given to "the local male athlete whose performance and character best exemplified the ideals of sportsmanship during the calendar year."
Derek will receive the award at the sixth annual L.A. Sports Awards on Feb. 24.
NEXT UP
No. 2 plays two this weekend as the Lakers host a pair of big games at the Staples Center.
Tonight the Lakers welcome Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets to LA for the second game between the two teams in 10 days. Just last week the Lakers went into New Orleans and came out with a 103-88 win over the host Hornets. D-Fish finished with nine points and eight assists in the victory.
The rematch tips off Friday at 7:30 PST on FS West.
Sunday it’s the surging New York Knicks that come to Hollywood to take on the Lake Show. That game tips off at 6:30 PST, also on FS West.
RELATED ARTICLES