Fox Hits ‘Delete,’ to Delight of Lakers

SACRAMENTO —  For once, we won’t talk about Rick Fox’s words. We’ll talk about his play. Then we’ll talk about his words.

Fox took out Sacramento forward Hedo Turkoglu on Saturday. Wiped him out as quickly as a few strokes of the backspace key can take out a word on your computer.

Fox D’d up on Turkoglu and had another smart, efficient session on offense to help the Lakers to that decisive first quarter against the Sacramento Kings that helped them win Game 1 and quite possibly the entire Western Conference finals.

The Kings were playing catch-up all afternoon Saturday, and they’ll spend the next two days doing it as well. Meanwhile, Turkoglu will still be trying to score his first point of the series on Monday.

He missed all eight shots Saturday. He was so out of it that he didn’t even get to take one in the fourth quarter, when he sat for all but one minute.

“You’ve got to hand it to Rick,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “He jumped in [Turkoglu’s] jock and made it difficult for him right off the bat to get shots. That was one of the keys to this game.”

As much yang as Fox was talking before the series, he needed to do something once it started. He was coming off his best game of the playoffs, a 17-point, seven-rebound effort in Game 5 against San Antonio, and when the Lakers came out in an offensive groove Saturday, it helped Fox keep gliding along. He’s a perfect fit for the triangle, a man who understands spacing and ball movement and all that old-school North Carolina stuff. He had four assists and made two of three shots (including a three-pointer) in the first quarter.

The Kings complement the triangle pretty well, too. They didn’t rotate or recover the way San Antonio did, leading to open Laker shots throughout the quarter. To Fox, it was further evidence of a Sacramento characteristic he had discussed at length on Wednesday.

“We talked about their ability to play defensively to an extent,” Fox reminded us Saturday. “They’re good at it at early points in the shot clock. They gamble, they get some steals. But if you sit them down and you move the ball and you make them work defensively, then you get better shots.”

It sure feels good to be right.

“We were able to back up what we said to begin with,” Fox said. “I said we were going to win the series. That’s only one game. Right now we have a lot of unfinished business.”

Even though the Lakers just swiped the home-court advantage that the Kings earned all season--the edge they thought would propel them past the Lakers for their first time after consecutive playoff losses to them--the Lakers actually let the Kings off the hook.

They could have buried them and crushed any hopes they had of winning this series. Instead the Kings have to feel confident they can bounce back. They just absorbed the Lakers’ best game of the playoffs, but still came back enough to have a chance at grabbing a victory until the final two minutes.

The Kings did it despite losing out on as many officials’ calls as you will ever see go against a home team. They did it without the injured Peja Stojakovic. For that matter, they did it without Turkoglu. He’s averaging seven points per game in the playoffs. They lost, 106-99. Do the math.

Fox denied Turkoglu the ball, forced him to uncomfortable spots on the floor when he did get it and contested his shots. And, yes, Fox was aggressive.

“I knew he was gonna do all that grabbing,” Turkoglu said. “I don’t want to complain. I’ll try to go to the hole.”

He needs to be more aggressive, because his confidence clearly waned with every minute. On his final shot, he hesitated, then finally-- reluctantly--launched a jumper that wasn’t even close.

Turkoglu was one of the question marks I had about the Kings before this series. He didn’t make the Big Leap this season after showing signs he could do a little bit of everything last season.

I’ll give him props for this: He stuck around after the game to face the reporters and discuss his non-performance Saturday.

“They really need me,” Turkoglu said. “All other guys were doing their job good. I couldn’t do my job well.”

No doubt this was a job well done for Fox, who finished with nine points, five assists and a blocked shot. And he’s a fourth of the way toward making good on his prediction.

“We’re one step closer to being prophets,” Fox said. “When both sides are talking a lot of trash like we did--which we’ll put aside and just play the games the rest of the way--someone’s going to come out looking like a genius. And right now, we’re 1-up.”

The trash-talking cease-fire lasted about as long as that Kramer guy’s solo TV show after “Seinfeld.” Fox couldn’t resist noting how the Lakers hushed the crowd when they outscored the Kings, 36-22, in the first quarter.

“It was quite the interesting start to the game, when you have an arena going for the Guinness Book of World Records for the loudest crowd, and then five minutes later it’s the quietest crowd,” Fox said. “That was fun, too.”

Fox came through with one of the supporting performances the Lakers need behind the usual 50-plus from O’Neal and Bryant.

“Rick played great tonight,” Robert Horry said. “He’s not going to get enough credit for that. He kept the guy from getting some easy shots because he came out and tried to be aggressive. Rick was right there, being aggressive with him, keeping the ball out of his hands.

“Rick deserves a big star tonight.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: [email protected].