The Associated Press is reporting that Phil Jackson will return to coach the Los Angeles Lakers for the 2010-11 season, putting off retirement for at least another year to chase his 12th NBA championship.

Jackson made the announcement Thursday with a news release. The Hall-of-Fame coach said last week he was leaning toward retirement after another long season, but he changed his mind after getting a week to rest up at his offseason home in Montana.

With Jackson at the helm, the Lakers recently won their second consecutive NBA championship – their fifth under Jackson – should be the prohibitive favorites to repeat next season.

Jackson, who will turn 65 later this year, says next season will be “a last stand for me, and I hope a grand one.”

Going after a possible fourth “three-peat” was just too much for Jackson to pass up, and the Lakers have all the pieces to make another title run. Kobe Bryant is still in his prime years, Pau Gasol has developed into a first-team All-NBA performer and Andrew Bynum is expected to make a full recovery from his torn meniscus on his right knee.

“He knows how badly I want him back. Let’s go for it again,” Bryant said shortly after the Lakers won Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics.

Jackson has been dealing with health issues for the past four seasons, mainly knee, back and hip ailments. He struggles to get through long road trips because he can’t sit in an airplane for long hours, and he needs a customized “booster” chair on the bench to alleviate his back pain.

Since Jackson came to L.A. in 1999, the Lakers have been to the NBA Finals seven times. Jackson is the winningest coach in the league in terms of championships, and if you include his two rings as a player he has been a part of 13 championship teams.

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Lakers center Andrew Bynum played only 16 minutes in Game 6 of the 2010 NBA Finals and told Phil Jackson that he felt a little tightness in the back of his right leg, which made it difficult for him to run up and down the court.

“He wasn’t able to move fluidly in the second half,” Jackson said. “He just said ‘Take me out, I can’t run.’ He had some swelling in the back of his leg, and we’ll have to work on that, ice it down and control that.”

Jackson added: “Of course it concerns us. Both teams are playing without players at this time. You just have to gut it through.”

Bynum, 22, has been playing with a torn meniscus in his right knee since the first round and he re-aggravated the injury in Game 3 of The Finals and has been limited since. He is averaging 9.6 points per game in the series.

The 7-foot center started Game 6 but scored just two points, was 1-for-4 from the field and had just four rebounds. He will be re-evaluated Wednesday, but is expected to play in Game 7.

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The L.A. Lakers are a proud basketball team that doesn’t easily back down from challenge – at least the leaders of the team don’t.

So, after losing two of three in Boston, Lakers head coach Phil Jackson and team co-captain Kobe Bryant were in very salty moods. And who can blame them? For the first time in the 2010 NBA postseason, the Lakers trail a best-of-seven series 3-2 and are on the brink of elimination. Bryant and Jackson have had to answer a boatload of questions regarding the team’s shortcomings, but in reality, the Celtics should be given credit for holding serve and now it’s the Lakers’ turn to do the same.

“If you look at it they’ve come home and carried the 3-2 lead back and it’s basically homecourt, homecourt. Now we’re going back to [our] homecourt, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Jackson explained.

When Jackson was asked about the leaky Lakers defense, the Lakers coach pretty much dismissed it and thought L.A. defended well enough to win Game 5.

“If I’m not mistaken they scored 92 points, am I right? We’ll live with that and come back and play that game again, regardless of what they shot,” Jackson said. “They had their run, we know they’re gonna have their run and as I told the players before the game this team is going to shoot well one of these games. They haven’t shot well, yet, on their homecourt so they’re gonna have a game when they shoot well and you’re just going to have hang with them.”

Boston’s defense has gotten much of the credit for putting the Celtics ahead in this series, and Bryant believes the team dominates the hustle board and plays with more efficiency on offense has come out on top.

Kobe Bryant says the Lakers have a challenge ahead of them down 3-2 in the NBA Finals. (NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

“They got all the hustle points, got all the loose balls and offensive rebounds down the stretch,” Bryant said. “They just got to every ball. They played with more tenacity than we did, and we have to do a much better job in Game 6.”

Bryant continued: “They do a good job defensively. We normally do a good job moving the ball. We missed a lot of shots. We shot 37 percent, but that’s a testament to their defense as well. To be honest with you, the offensive part of the game kinda comes and goes. I just felt like defensively we weren’t very good at all. We didn’t get any stops. They shot layup, after layup, after layup. Can’t survive when a team shoots 57 percent.”

So, how confident is Bryant that his Lakers can win these next two games at home to win the NBA title?

“Nah, I’m not very confident at all,” Bryant joked, then broke into a wide grin to accentuate his sarcasm.

“We have a challenge, obviously, down 3-2. It is what it is,” Bryant said. “You go home, you got two games at home that you need to win. Pull your boots up and get to work.”

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Andrew Bynum is expected to have his ailing right knee examined today and his status for Game 5 is uncertain.

Bynum has been playing with a torn meniscus since the first round of the 2010 NBA playoffs, but he reaggravated the injury in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Lakers officials say there is swelling in the knee and Bynum has experienced some discomfort. He played just 12 minutes in Game 4 and scored just two points.

“I haven’t got any expectations. I don’t know what his condition is today,” Jackson said at his Friday morning news conference.

Jackson inserted Bynum in the starting lineup last night, but opted for Lamar Odom in the second half as Bynum received extra treatment at halftime. But when he returned, he was ineffective and appeared limited in his movement.

Not having Bynum for much of Game 4 really compromised the Lakers’ interior  defense as the Celtics outrebounded the Lakers, 41-34, and dominated them, 54-34, in points in the paint.

“They miss him,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said of the Lakers’ 7-foot center. “He’s got great size and length. We attacked the paint and obvioulsy he wasn’t there. When he’s not on the floor there’s a big difference.”

Because Game 5 is not until Sunday, the Lakers will use these next two days to evaluate Bynum’s injury before making a decision on his playing status. Though it was a little bit of a struggle to get through Game 4 Jackson said Bynum still had an impact in the game.

“Even with him dragging the leg around a little bit, he still helped us in situations last night. Andrew still has the length and the strength to capture rebounds.

“We’ll use him if he’s available and able. But we’re certainly not going to put him in situations that’s going to hurt himself or the team.”

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Phil Jackson complaining about officiating during an NBA playoff series is about as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

The inevitable happened after the Lakers lost, 103-94, in Game 2 of the 2010 NBA Finals and the series now tied 1-1.

During his regular postgame news conference, Jackson was asked what he thought of the officiating in Game 2 and he wasted little time in planting the seed for the rest of the series. Jackson began with, “It’s gonna be that way from game to game, and I think a lot of it is about who comes out aggressively and does the right thing out there at the very start of the ballgame.”

That was certainly a diplomatic commentary from Jackson, but he sharpened his stance later on.

Jackson had three major issues: 1) how Ray Allen frees himself for his 3-pointers, 2) why Doc Rivers was allowed on the court to call timeout, and 3) the questionable foul calls on Kobe Bryant.

When the Lakers coach was asked what he thought of some of the foul calls on his star player, who picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth quarter, he said: “I wasn’t happy with the foul calls. Those were unusual calls. It really changed the complexity of this ballgame.”

I guess Jackson wasn’t satisfied with the 41 foul shots his team attempted in Game 2 compared to Boston’s 26.

One thing that definitely didn’t sit well with Jackson was the way Allen torched the Lakers with eight 3-point shots in Game 2, an NBA Finals record. But it wasn’t the end result that burned Jackson, it was the initial process that irked him. Jackson believes it will be difficult to stay with the Celtics’ shooting guard when he’s allowed to move freely around the screens.

“When they take away any bumps when Fish is trying to make him divert his path and they don’t allow him to do that and they call fouls on Fish, that really gives him an opportunity to take what ever route he wants to take off on the pickers. That makes it very difficult,” Jackson explained.

“We just have to adjust to the ballgames on what the referees would call,” Jackson continued. “Are they going to allow us to take direct line cuts away from him so he has to divert his route or let him run through Fish and get a foul called on Fisher? Then it makes a totally different type of ballgame. Then Fish has to give him the route he wants to run in and he’s gotta play from behind all the time. That’s the adjustment we’ll make in this series. But he had a great game.”

Then, Jackson turned his attention to Rivers’ timely timeout late in the fourth quarter that allowed the Celtics to avoid an eight-second backcourt violation. “I don’t know if you can do that or not. I don’t think that’s legal,” the Lakers coach pointed out. “Coaches have to stay on the sideline, they’re not supposed to stay on the floor. It looked like he was shot out of a starter’s block.”

It looks like the Zen Master has fired the first meaningful shot at the referees in the 2010 Finals.

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Ron Artest was at the TD Garden when the Boston Celtics crushed the L.A. Lakers in Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals. He went to the Lakers locker room to seek out Kobe Bryant, following the Lakers’ star all the way to the showers.

Artest told Bryant, and anyone else who would listen, that he can help the Lakers win a title and would love to wear the purple and gold. Two years later, Artest will have an opportunity to fulfill his promise.

“This is his chance to shine,” said Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who told reporters on Wednesday that he plans to stick Artest on Boston’s Paul Pierce. “We had a tough matchup with Pierce last time we played them in the playoffs. [Artest] is a guy who we know can defend, so we anticipate this as a matchup of interest.”

Ron Artest will be matched up against Paul Pierce in the 2010 NBA Finals. (NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

Artest is one of two Lakers starters who did not play in the ‘08 Finals, the other being center Andrew Bynum. The Lakers signed the eccentric but gifted forward with the idea that he’ll be the physical defensive stopper that L.A. severely lacked against physical small forwards such as Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and Pierce.

The Lakers never had to face Anthony or James in the playoffs, but they are facing Pierce, the 2008 NBA Finals MVP and a player who makes the Celtics a more dynamic team with his ability to create his own shot and get to the free throw line. He averaged 21 points in the ‘08 Finals and has a career 25-point average against the Lakers.

However, in two games against the Lakers during this past regular season and primarily guarded by Artest, Pierce was held to 13 points and shot just 40% from the field.

“Pierce is a tough matchup. He’s very smart, he’s one of the few players that has a long ball, has mid-range game, can get to the basket so, I think, that makes him a tougher cover than most. But Ron’s up for the challenge,” said Kobe Bryant, who also believes the presence of Bynum, despite his ailing knee, will be a factor in the series.

“It helps having him against this Celtics team. They’re a big team, a physical team. I’m excited for him. This is a big challenge for him,” Bryant said of his 7-foot, 280-pound starting center, who averaged 16 points and 10 rebounds in two games against Boston during the regular season.

Bynum and Artest are two defensive layers that discourages Pierce from driving to the basket, making him a one-dimensional player. If Pierce puts up similar numbers in The Finals, the Celtics are going to lose the series because they are not good enough offensively to make up for Pierce’s scoring.

Artest will use his 260-pound frame to uproot Pierce out of his sweet spots. He’ll make him work extra hard for his points and not allow him to camp out on the free throw line where he has made his living for the past 12 years.

“It’s not going to change my mentality. I’m gonna approach the game the way I approach a lot of these games,” Pierce claimed. “Just a scorer’s mentality, being real aggressive. Obviously, I’m playing against one of the top defenders in the game. So, he’s going to make things a little bit more harder, a little bit more physical. You gotta expect that. I mean that’s what Ron Artest is – a guy who tries to get in your head throughout the game, grab on you, pull on you, scratch on you. You gotta expect those things. When I go to a game, playing against him, I expect all those things.”

Though Pierce knows what to expect from Artest, the matchup will still be extremely difficult for him – similar to what transpired in the Cleveland series in which Pierce had to wrestle with LeBron – and the Celtics will need to find their offense somewhere else. But where? Bryant will blanket Rajon Rondo and Pau Gasol should be able to handle Kevin Garnett. The only real matchup advantage for the Celtics is Ray Allen against the smaller Derek Fisher. But at this stage of his career, Allen can’t be counted on to score 30 points every single night.

There is a strong perception around the league that the Lakers are soft team and the way to throw them off their game is push them around. But that was two years ago. The Lakers are no longer pushovers and Artest provides them with an edge, a type of bulldog-type player who embraces ruggedness and doesn’t back down from a challenge.

“Ron is unique. He’s very much an individual,” Jackson said. “As the NBA goes, every player has his own individual personality you have to handle in a different way. Ron is determined, I think he’s dogged and that’s what makes him a great defensive player.”

The Celtics are not the only team in this series who can play in-your-face defense. The Lakers can play that too. Boston’s defense pitted against L.A.’s offense is a stalemate. But L.A.’s defense is much, much better than Boston’s offense. Ultimately, that is the difference in the series.

Prediction: Lakers in 6.

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The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics met in the 2008 NBA Finals, a series won by Boston in six games. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

When Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times asked Phil Jackson if the memory of the 2008 NBA Finals still lingers, the Lakers coach responded with a sarcastic quip. “I forgot. I have amnesia,” Jackson claimed. “What year was that now? 2-8? Ok.”

Jackson was obviously kidding about not remembering anything from the ‘08 Finals. He certainly hasn’t forgotten the terrible feeling he had when he walked off the TD Garden floor in Game 6 when his Lakers were destroyed by 39 points by the Boston Celtics – the largest margin of victory in a series-clinching game in the playoffs. He certainly hasn’t forgotten how the Celtics big men manhandled his frontline. And he definitely remembers Game 4 when the Lakers wasted a 24-point lead and lost at home.

The 2008 Celtics and the 2004 Detroit Pistons are the only two teams to beat Jackson in the NBA Finals, and the Zen Master – owner of 10 NBA championship rings – admitted that he hates to lose, especially in The Finals.

“There’s nothing worse than to lose in The Finals. It’s about as low as you can get,” said Jackson. “I’ve done it twice now, so I know it’s a real difficult summer after that.”

Just moments after the Lakers defeated the Phoenix Suns in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, all the attention and focus shifted to the much anticipated and very attractive Lakers-Celtics showdown in the 2010 NBA Finals, and Jackson couldn’t resist bringing up an unexpected encounter last summer involving one of Boston’s Fantastic Four.

“After the 2009 Finals, I ran into [Paul] Pierce at a complex where my daughter lives in L.A. I said to him ‘Get it back. I want to meet you in The Finals,’ ” Jackson recalled. “So, here it is. Almost a year later. We have an opportunity to renew this rivalry.”

When it comes to great rivalries in sports, few compare to the Lakers and the Celtics.

The two basketball superpowers have combined to win 32 NBA championships – the Celtics have 17 and the Lakers 15. Boston has reached the league’s ultimate game 21 times while the Lakers have been part of it a record 31 times.

“It’s a matchup that is very easy to talk about,” said Kobe Bryant, whose Lakers are facing the Celtics for the second time in three years in The Finals. “They are a lot of things people can write about. It’s a sexy matchup. So, we’re looking for to the challenge and looking forward to the test.”

The NBA as we know it now was built on the foundation laid down by the great Lakers-Celtics battles in the 1960s with legendary figures such as Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The league then experienced an astronomical growth in popularity during the 1980s thanks to headliners such as Pat Riley, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.

If it were not for the Celtics, the Lakers would have 24 world titles and a New York Yankees-like dynasty. The Lakers and Celtics have met 11 times in The Finals with Boston walking away with the trophy on nine occasions. The last meeting came in the 2008 Finals and the Lakers are still seething over how it ended.

For two years, the Lakers have been waiting to get their shot at the Celtics, a team who taught them a lesson in physicality and mental toughness. The Lakers feel their have overcome their deficiencies and they can’t wait to show the hated Celtics how much they have improved from the last time they met in the playoffs.

“We’re looking forward to the challenge,” Bryant said. “The last time we played them it was a great learning experience for us. It taught us what it takes to be a champion, with the defensive intensity that they play with and the tenacity that they play with. We learned a great deal in that series.”

So, did L.A. secretly hoped to play Boston in The Finals because they have a score to settle with the Celtics? “I don’t give a damn who we play. Doesn’t matter to me,” Bryant said. “The challenge is to win a championship, and the Celtics are in the way.”

Bryant may not say it publicly but he is thrilled to be playing the Celtics. He knows he can cement his legacy by conquering the team with a storied history, and he can put more distance between himself and the rest of the field by taking down a Boston team that knocked out Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Dwight Howard in this year’s playoffs.

But it won’t be easy.

The Celtics own one of the league’s top defenses and they have not lost a series since Kevin Garnett came on board on 2007. Boston employs a very physical but cerebral defensive plan. The scheme begins by loading up one side of the court and keeping all the opposing perimeter players away from the paint. Because the Celtics flood the paint the tendency is to shoot 3-pointers, which is exactly what they want you to do and they have the athletes who can close out on shooters.

“We’re playing a different style of ball now,” Bryant said. “We’ve had three series where every single one has been different. Now we’re going into this where the level of physicality and intensity will be at an all-time high. We’re not looking at games in the 115, 110-point range.”

The Lakers are certainly well equipped to handle any style, having faced three different philosophies in their path to the NBA Finals. They played a quick, athletic team in Oklahoma City, a rugged but methodical Utah squad and a high-scoring, loose bunch from Phoenix.

But going from Phoenix’s loose zone defense to Boston’s air-tight man-to-man concept will be a big adjustment for the Lakers, despite their familiarity with the Celtics.

“I don’t know if it’ll be a tough transition, but it’ll definitely be different,” said Lakers co-captain Derek Fisher. “If you really breakdown the Celtics defense, it’s basically a zone defense.”

The great Celtics’ defense vs. the great Lakers’ offense. It’s a match made in basketball heaven.

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Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson revealed on Sunday night that he is considering sitting center Andrew Bynum for Game 4 to rest his ailing right knee.

The Lakers have a 2-1 edge in the Western Conference finals against the Phoenix Suns and Game 5 is on Thursday in Los Angeles so that would give Bynum three full days of not putting any weight on his right knee, which has a torn meniscus.

Bynum told Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com that he prefers to play because he’s not doing more damage to the knee. But Jackson is more concerned about how Bynum’s injury is impacting the Lakers, especially on the defensive end.

“I’ll talk to him and see what his suggestion is and how he feels about it, ” Jackson said of Bynum, who had two points, two rebounds and four personal fouls in a little over seven minutes in Game 3, won by the Suns 118-109.

“I think that he was ineffective tonight. There’s some things that got by him. He had one nice move in the post. Defensively, I thought he was a little bit late.”

Amare Stoudemire punished the Lakers defense with a series-high 42 points, aided by 14 free throws on 18 attempts. But Stoudemire scoring 40 points is not that surprising. What was surprising was that Robin Lopez made eight of 10 shots from the field and scored 20 points. If Bynum were healthy, Lopez wouldn’t have 20 points. Heck, he may not even have more than six.

Bynum doesn’t need to score to have an impact in the game. They have Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol for that. What Bynum brings to the floor is size and length on defense, which discourage players, such as Stoudemire, from driving to the basket. With Bynum and Gasol in the backline, the Lakers possess two 7-footers with extremely long wingspans and perimeter defenders such as Ron Artest can apply more pressure on the opposition and not worry about getting beat to the basket.

“Obviously, he’s been a key player all year. He can bring a lot to the table defensively and offensively,” Gasol said of his teammate. “He’s a big presence for us. We don’t know how much that knee is a factor. Of course, I would like for him to play more, and provide more, and help us.”

The Lakers are good enough to advance past the Suns without Bynum, but they will need him in the NBA Finals. And that’s the big picture Jackson and the Lakers are looking at.

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Phil Jackson loves to play mind games with the opposition.

The first jab of the 2010 Western Conference finals was thrown by Lakers coach Phil Jackson when he said Steve Nash, Phoenix’s All-Star point guard, is tough to guard when he is allowed to carry the ball.

When asked what a chore it would be for his team to contain Nash and simulate what he does in practice, Jackson joked with reporters and said, “Yeah, because you can’t carry the ball like he does in practice. You can’t put that ball up and run with it.

Jackson is well known for this kind of gamesmanship. He made a similar remark prior to the start of the Lakers’ first-round series against Oklahoma City when he highlighted that Kevin Durant gets a lot of favorable calls from officials.

The little verbal potshot may have worked on the 21-year-old Durant, who was visibly upset by Jackson’s claim, but the 36-year-old Nash has been in way too many of these playoff battles to be suckered into a war of words. And he certainly knows how to handle the Zen Master’s mind games.

“I mean the best coach in the league, Gregg Popovich, didn’t have a problem with it last week,” said Nash.

Pau Gasol and the Lakers will have their hands full against the crafty Steve Nash.

Though both teams have a lot of respect from one another, there is a little bitterness in terms of recent playoff history between the two Pacific Division rivals. This is the third playoff meeting between Phoenix and L.A. since 2006, and the Lakers have a score to settle with the Suns since they were the last Western Conference team to knock out the defending NBA champs.

The Suns are coming off an impressive four-game sweep of the San Antonio Spurs, while the Lakers recently beat up the Utah Jazz in four convincing games.

Nash and Amare Stoudemire are playing at a high level in the playoffs, but so are Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant.

“They’re a great combo. Their two-man, screen-roll situations are phenomenal. We think that we have a good combination in Pau and Kobe, and we’re going to try and match that,” said Jackson.

During the regular season, the Lakers defeated the Suns three out of four times and had a seven-point average margin of victory. The Suns bench, which was key in the Spurs’ series, played a big part in Phoenix’s lone victory over the Lakers on Dec. 28. The Suns bench outscored the Lakers bench, 52-31, and 44 of them came from Jared Dudley (19), Goran Dragic (14) and Leandro Barbosa (11). One footnote from that game was that Ron Artest, the Lakers’ best defender, did not play because of a concussion.

Artest will likely guard Suns shooting Jason Richardson, who struggled mightily against the Lakers this season. He averaged just 8.7 points in four games and made just three of 21 3-point shots.

The Suns will need their bench, as well as Channing Frye, to play at a high level against the Lakers because depth is the only real advantage for the Suns in this series.

“It’s a challenge that we should look forward to,” said Suns coach Alvin Gentry, who was an assistant with Mike D’Antoni in 2007 and 2006 when the Suns bounced the Lakers from the postseason. “We’ve earned the right to play [the Lakers]. Nobody gave it to us, we’ve earned the right to play them.”

Video courtesy of NBA.com

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All championship teams have great role players – guys who play their position, make all the hustle plays and knock down shots when called upon.

Magic Johnson’s Laker teams had Michael Cooper. Larry Bird’s Celtic teams had Danny Ainge. Robert Horry, who was instrumental in helping Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets, Shaq and Kobe’s Lakers and Tim Duncan’s Spurs win titles, is probably the NBA’s ultimate role player.

Since Horry retired, his former teammate, Derek Fisher, has now become the best role player in the NBA.

Fisher showed his value during a hotly contested Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals against his former team Saturday night when he knocked down a key 3-point shot with 28 seconds left that put the Lakers ahead, 109-108, a lead L.A. never relinquished. The Lakers won, 111-110, and now have a commanding 3-0 lead in their best-of-series against the Jazz.

“He’s done that before. He’s one of those guys who is a tough guy. He played for us and was a great competitor,” Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said of Fisher, who played for the Jazz in 2007, but asked to be released so that his ailing daughter could get better treatment and L.A. was one of the places she could receive better care.

“A big loss for our team when he left. But that’s life,” Sloan added. “He gave us toughness, and he made a lot of shots like that for us. He was a wonderful guy to coach, a real professional.”

Fisher was 3-for-7 from 3-point range in Game 3 and finished with 20 points. And even though Deron Williams had 28 points, Fisher made him earn every point and even frustrated the Jazz All-Star point guard at times. And Fisher’s knowledge of Utah’s sets on offense has been a very valuable scouting tool for the Lakers’ coaching staff.

“Fish just being Fish. What more can you say. This is something he’s done his career,” Kobe Bryant said of his 35-year-old backcourt partner, now in his 11th season with the Lakers. “Even with things that don’t show up on the stat sheet: his recognition, his ball movement, his spacing, and obviously knocking down big shot after big shot. That’s something that he does.”

Laker guard Derek Fisher (right) has done a decent job defensively on Utah's Deron Williams. (NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

The Lakers attempted 29 3-point shots in Game 3, and Sloan said that was by design to try to combat the Lakers’ size advantage. Unfortunately for Sloan and the Jazz, the Lakers converted 13 of them.

“To try to help out our big people to keep the ball out of the middle, we gave them a lot of 3-point shots. We felt that gave us a chance to win the ballgame, and that probably got us,” said Sloan.

Fisher, Bryant and Ron Artest were a combined 10-for-21 from behind the arc.

Phil Jackson says he never worries about Fisher because the Lakers coach is confident the 14-year veteran will always make the right decision. That trust is the main reason why Jackson makes sure the dependable Fisher is on the court during crunch time, affording the Lakers two fourth-quarter closers – a luxury most playoffs teams don’t have.

Fisher has delivered timely shots during his outstanding Laker career, a career that includes four NBA championships and six trips to The Finals. No other role player on a current NBA roster has four championship rings.

In 2001, Fisher came back from a stress fracture on his right foot to help the Lakers sweep through the playoffs and finish 15-1. Fisher established an NBA postseason record for most 3-pointers made in a four-game series with 15 in the Western Conference semifinals against San Antonio.

Then, in 2004, Fisher killed the Spurs again when he made one of the most memorable buzzer-beaters in playoff history when he sank a game-winning shot in 0.4 seconds.

The Fisher Fling was the defining moment of his career until the 2009 NBA Finals when he made two clutch 3-point shots against the Magic in Game 4. With his team down by three, Fisher drained a 3-pointer at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime. He then buried the dagger 3-pointer late in OT to seal the deal.

Defensively, Father Time has taken away Fisher’s foot speed and he’s never going to be mistaken for being a shutdown defender. However, he is still  a scrappy defender and never backs down from a challenge. He always finds ways to contribute, taking charges, helping out on close-outs, sacrificing his body by bullying his way through screens and diving for loose balls. Those are the little things that lead to big parades in June.

“He played a great game,” Jackson said of Fisher’s Game 3 performance. “He hit some shots, made some defensive plays I thought were good out there on the floor. Just his tenacity is a factor for us.”

Fisher is one of the most physically and mentally tough players in the league, and his calming influence in the locker room should never be underestimated. He’s probably the only player inside the Laker locker room who has earned Kobe’s trust. Because of Fisher’s reputation for being a stand-up guy, he can act as a buffer between Bryant and Jackson.

Since Fisher returned to L.A. in 2007, it is no coincidence the Lakers have been to the NBA Finals two years in a row and are about to reach their third consecutive Western Conference finals.

His true value can’t be measure by statistics, and he’s the glue that holds the Lakers together.

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