Posted by Roland at May 21st, 2008

The Lakers first heard it during the 2000 playoffs.

The coach beat his tom-tom and chanted on game days. The instrument had routine purpose in the lives of the Native Americans, and Phil Jackson was determined it would have the same for his Los Angeles Lakers.

“I guess the drum is basically for gathering in terms of Indian customs,” guard Derek Fisher explained to me back then. “They would hit the drum so that people would come together. Whether it was time to eat or time to meet or whatever. He just does that on game days when it’s time for us to go in and watch film. It’s different. But that’s part of who he is, his life experiences. He chooses to share that with his teams.”

Back in those 2000 playoffs, when they first heard the drum and saw Phil Jackson chanting, many Lakers fought to suppress their snickers. Kobe Bryant had even read Jackson’s book “Sacred Hoops” in preparation for that first season. So he knew that the coach liked to blend basketball with spiritual exploration. But even that didn’t prepare Bryant for the tom-tom.

“It kind of caught me off guard,” Bryant admitted. “I didn’t know about that. I smiled. I laughed, as a matter of fact. It’s funny. He said, ‘You guys gotta get your hearts going. Just like warriors preparing for battle.’

“I said, ‘Okay, Phil. All right.’

“Phil said, ‘Is your heart beating a little faster?’

“I was like, ‘No, Phil. No.’”

In Chicago, Jackson had not beaten the drum as insistently. It wasn’t necessary there. Over his years with the Bulls he had come to share a great intuitive feel for the game with Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan. From that shared intuition, Jackson developed a deep and abiding love for his Chicago teams. Even the Bulls employees who did not like him — and there were a few — could sense this love for his team, and they admired him for it.

Among his early frustrations in Los Angeles was that his young stars showed little intuitive depth when it came to basketball. As a result, the coach found himself trying hard to love that first Lakers team. He wanted his players to feel the game the way he and Jordan and Pippen had. He wanted to bring the Lakers together, to push them along to a single heartbeat. He wanted them to be a tribe, to feel bonds.

Jackson searched for a spark in his Laker players. Some of them did not understand him. Others were intimidated by him. But they all extended  a measure of respect to him based largely on the fact that his Bulls teams had dominated professional basketball. They quickly came to see that the coach and his assistants brought an immaculately detailed approach to their work. As Fisher explained, it was the detail, all the little things, that made them an absolutely great coaching staff. So that made it easy for the players to accept the tom-tom, as strange as the drumming seemed to them, as part of the package of that detail.

“Even until a couple of months ago it still was funny,” Fisher said late in the spring of 2000. “To see him and hear him walking through here chanting and beating on his drum.

“Sometimes he’s smiling, sometimes he’s chanting. Sometimes he’s just hitting it.”

“I wondered what he was doing,” Robert Horry said. “Everybody says he always does crazy things, so I was like, ‘This must be Phil being Phil.’”

This recent version of the Lakers has long grown accustomed to Jackson’s drum beating, longtime Jackson associate Tex Winter says.

(Jackson even has Winter beating the drum on occasion).

“It’s one of the things he does to prepare for games at home,” Winter said recently. “They seem to accept it without question.”

And why not?

This young Lakers team won five straight home playoff games over the first two rounds this spring.

That home success has boosted them into the Western Conference championship series against the San Antonio Spurs, and Winter senses the sound of the drum is more welcome than ever.

That’s good, Winter says, because the Lakers are going to need everything they can think of to try and get past the Spurs.

“They’re good, man,” the 86-year-old guru, Jackson’s longtime mentor, says of the veteran Spurs. “They can control the tempo of the game. That’s their strength. They’re very balanced. Manu Ginobli, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Bruce Bowen, they all present their own sort of problems.

“We’re just gonna have to outscore them some way or another. I hope we can. It’s not gonna be easy. But it’s gonna be interesting. I’m sure we can score on ‘em, but I’m not sure we can score enough.”

There are also immense questions defending the Spurs.

Taking the brunt of the challenge will be new Lakers center Pau Gasol, smart, skilled but a tad thin for the task.

“It’s a test for all of us,” Winter says, “but Gasol’s got a tough assignment. He’s going head to head with Tim Duncan. Over the years, he’s been the best big man in the game.”

Laker backup Ronny Turiaf can perhaps help a bit against Duncan, but Winter says even Turiaf’s effectiveness will be questionable against Duncan.

Likewise challenged will be the Lakers Derek Fisher with San Antonio’s Tony Parker, whom Winter sees as one of the most underappreciated guards in the game.

“Fisher has been able to play pretty well against him in the past,” Winter observed. “That’s one of the keys. Parker offers so much speed and penetration.”

Defending quick, smart guards like Parker has long been a Laker difficulty.

Backup point Jordan Farmar is another question mark in this matchup. “He’s capable of playing well if he gets going,” Winter offered. “He’s had a tough time against Parker in the past, but then again, most guards have.”

The ultimate decision for Jackson is how the Lakers match up with guard Manu Ginobli. “I’m not sure how we’re gonna go with that one,” Winter said. “Phil may not know the answer to that one right up until game time Wednesday. That’s another one of the keys. What are we gonna do to contain that guy?”

Ginobli is the Spurs’ main offensive threat and the key to their success, Winter said. “We’ve always had trouble with him.”

On the other hand, the Lakers hope to present the Spurs a few problems of their own. Matching up with Kobe Bryant always comes to the top of that list.

Lakers forward Lamar Odom also should give them headaches, Winter said.

So will the Lakers’ triangulated offensive attack if the players execute, pass the ball like they did against Denver in the first round and maintain their floor spacing.

They’ve had a few days to prepare for the conference times. The time was spent with days off and plenty of chatter when the team regrouped.

As always, Jackson has shown the team a film spliced around the tape of their scouting sessions. This time the selection is apparently Speed Racer. Like many critics, Winter hasn’t been able to make much out of it.

Then again, he used to say the same thing about Jackson’s tom-tom, but now he’s a believer of sorts.

“When they hear the drum, they know to assemble, that it’s time to focus, time to get with it,” Winter said. “It seems to work. I don’t know how important those things are,

“The important thing is how we play.”

 Part of this column was excerpted from Roland Lazenby’s 2001 biography of Phil Jackson, Mindgames, which has been re-released in a special paperback edition by the University of Nebraska Press.