John Walters

LOS ANGELES - You might blame transcontinental jet lag. Or stage fright. Or the interminably wearying odyssey that is the NBA postseason ("Good evening, I'm Ted Koppel, and this is Day 52 of the NBA playoff crisis…"). Or even that local-to-SoCal seasonal disorder known here as "June Gloom."

Whatever the reason, too many starters missed their call time, as it is known in Hollywood, for Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Paul Pierce of the Celtics shot 2-for-14, scoring just six points. All-Star teammate Kevin Garnett began the evening 1-of-10, his lone bucket coming off an alley oop, before somewhat recovering in the 4th quarter to finish with 13 points.

The Laker starters not named Kobe were no better. Lamar Odom, 4 points. Vladimir Radmanovic, 3. Derek Fisher, ordinarily consistent, shot just 1-of-6 from the field to finish with 6 points.

In a game that Los Angeles absolutely needed — no team has ever recovered from an 0-3 deficit in the NBA Finals — Kobe Bryant seemed to be searching for anyone with a little fight in him, and the best he could find was courtside fan Floyd Mayweather. If only he were taller than 5'8"…and had not retired last Friday.

Then, near the end of the first quarter, Aleksandar "Sasha" Vujacic appeared. The 24 year-old Slovenia native scored 20 points — just two fewer than the other four Laker starters combined — and played 28 minutes as Los Angeles won 87-81 to make this a series again.

"He was huge," Celtic coach Doc Rivers said of the feisty 6'7" guard. "Kobe (36 points) was fantastic, but I thought Vujacic was the key to the game."

To put it succinctly, Vujacic (Voo-ya-chich) competed. He drained a three-pointer from the left corner on a designed play to open the 4th quarter to give L.A. a 63-62 lead. With 2:25 to play and Los Angeles up by just two, he hit another from almost the same spot to put his team up 81-76.

"That's what I love the most," said Vujacic. "That's what I live for."

With his slicked-back brown mane, his fluency in Italian and his flair for histrionics, (Sasha incited a first-quarter technical foul on P.J. Brown) Vujacic reminds some of San Antonio's Manu Ginobili. And even more of Operaman.

"Well, he's a little bit of a rock head, that's what we call him," said Phil Jackson, who added that Los Angeles could not have won Game 3 without him. "Sasha always believes in himself."

Indeed, the Lakers' link to Ginobility left Slovenia at age 16 to play professionally in Italy (Manu also began his pro career there). Three years later the Lakers made him the 27th pick in the NBA draft, where he soon found himself enrolled in a crash-course in Kobenomics.

Ask Vujacic if he guards the MVP in practice and he sighs, "Four years."

Standing in the bowels of the Staples Center after Game 3, clad in a charcoal suit and wearing a few days' facial growth, Vujacic allowed that there were dark days. "I'm gonna be honest, there were practices that weren't a whole lotta fun."

One rumored anecdote from a couple postseasons ago, and unconfirmed by Sasha, had Bryant pinning him to the floor, applying pressure to his windpipe, and asking, "What are you going to do about it?"

Bryant and Vujacic eventually bonded as Kobe discovered in him a kindred spirit in terms of moxie. Also, as two men who both lived in the land of la dolce vita earlier in their lives, they find themselves conversing in Italian at times.

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