Ernie Johnson, host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” posed this question to Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Chris Webber after Denver beat Dallas on Tuesday evening: “Are the Lakers tough enough to win a championship?”
The question actually came from Bill Plaschke of the L.A. Times (who was credited by Johnson), and here’s how Kenny Smith answered after Barkley said he didn’t know:
I think they’re tough enough to win a championship, and they have all the elements in place. There’s no championship team that’s going to go through (the playoffs) and not lose on their home court, very rarely that’s going to happen. So, you lost a game. They’re tough enough, they have all the elements in place and toughness comes in a lot of forms. It doesn’t just come in phyiscality. It comes in mental toughness, being able to take the adversity and fight through it, and not always depend on the fact that you are better than a team, or you can get things done, but also when teams are playing at their best to shut them down. So yes, the Lakers are tough enough to be a championship team.
Barkley then questioned L.A.’s defense, suggesting that championship teams didn’t concede 20-point leads because of their defense, to which Webber responded:
I think they’re tough enough because we interviewed Kobe (Bryant) at the beginning of the season and he just said what you said Chuck, (that) last year the reason why they lost the championship was because they weren’t defensively tough enough and they weren’t aggressive. So I take that to mean that he told the team that, and over the summer they worked on it, and these little lessons that they’re going through now, they’re keeping it in their mind. If that’s all that they have, that they weren’t aggressive and didn’t meet the challenge, I think they’ll be OK.
