Nets, underdogs once again, are within reach of a title

LOS ANGELES -- Lucious Harris considered the possibility, and his eyes lit up. \nThe New Jersey Nets as NBA champions? What once seemed a galaxy away is now a mere four wins from reality. \n"We came this far, we're not going to lay down," the Nets' guard said. "We have confidence we can win this series. We've been underdogs all season. We're confident, every player." \nThe Nets' confidence will be tested beginning Wednesday night when they meet the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals at Staples Center. \nGame 2 is Friday night in Los Angeles before the best-of-seven series shifts to New Jersey. \nLike the Sacramento Kings, the Nets have been one of the league's bottom-feeders through the years. \nBut times sure have changed. \nThe Kings, 27-55 four years ago, extended the mighty Lakers to overtime in the deciding game of the Western Conference finals. \nWhile Sacramento's rise has been steady, New Jersey got there in a hurry. In the playoffs for the first time since 1998, the Nets were 26-56 last season. \nThe turnaround began with the acquisition of Jason Kidd from Phoenix last summer. \n"What in the world is Phoenix doing?" Lakers star Kobe Bryant said with a laugh Tuesday. \nWhat the Suns did was help make a winner of the Nets. \n"We had players here that had it in them," said Harris, who grew up in Los Angeles but cheered for the Celtics as a kid. "Jason brought it out." \nGoing for the 14th championship in franchise history, the Lakers have reached the NBA Finals 26 times. \nThe Nets, winners of only 19 playoff games since joining the NBA in 1976, including 10 this spring, have advanced past the second round for just the first time. \nOddsmakers established the Lakers as 9-1 favorites. \n"It would probably be one of the biggest upsets in history, I'll say," Harris said. "We've got to play a perfect game, period. We can't have scoring lapses. That's a true champion." \nIn Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant, the Lakers have the best at their positions -- inside and outside. If defending Kidd is a challenge, consider what the Nets face. \n"The one thing that I feel is we're a much better defensive team than Sacramento and they took the Lakers to seven games," Nets coach Byron Scott said. "We've played extremely well on the defensive end throughout the playoffs and we're going to continue to do that." \nScott plans to alternate Todd MacCulloch, Aaron Williams and Jason Collins against O'Neal and will start Kerry Kittles on Bryant, who Scott called the best all-around player in the NBA. \n"I think they like that underdog role, I think they're excited about it," Scott said. "I know we are the biggest underdogs in the history of the NBA Finals, and once our guys heard that, they just started smiling about it." \nScott was a member of three championship teams during his 11 years as a player with the Lakers, where he often played alongside Magic Johnson. \nIn Kidd, the Nets have a Magiclike player without the Showtime touch. Kidd became the first player in 35 years to get three triple-doubles in a playoff series in the six-game Eastern Conference finals against Boston. \n"Jason Kidd, in my mind, was this year's MVP," said O'Neal, who finished third behind San Antonio's Tim Duncan and Kidd in the voting. "It's not going to be easy for us. We've only played this team twice, so we don't know what all their secrets are. We just have to go out and continue what we've been doing." \nThe teams split their two regular-season meetings. But O'Neal didn't play in one, Bryant didn't play in the other and the Nets weren't at full strength, either. \nBryant thinks the Lakers will be just fine despite their wrenching series against the Kings -- a series that ended less than 72 hours before the NBA Finals begin. \nHe said the Lakers won't underestimate the Nets. \n"We saw what they did in Boston, jumping out to early leads and the type of intensity they play with," Bryant said. \nThe Lakers can become the fifth team in NBA history to win three or more consecutive championships, joining the Minneapolis Lakers (1952-54), the Celtics (1959-66) and the Chicago Bulls (1991-93 and 1996-98.