Something’s Gotta Give With Rock’s Trash Talk

Right now I’d welcome a visit from Detroit’s one and only celebrity fan, Bob Ritchie, who boasted to a reporter from the Detroit Free Press that he was looking forward to running into Jack Nicholson in the NBA Finals and the opportunity to “rip the sunglasses off his face.”

Now to be honest, I was a little surprised to hear something so nasty coming out of the mouth of someone who would rather be called “Kid Rock,” but if some punk from Detroit thinks he can push around Jack like he’s just another Joker, or Laker for that matter, let’s get it on.

It has to be more interesting than this brand of hockey, ah, basketball, which looks as if it’s going to make watching the NBA Finals -- which will now drag into five games -- a real chore.

“I can’t wait to get out there and watch the Lakers lose,” the punk told the Free Press a few days ago, but apparently the big talker wasn’t so sure it would happen Sunday night, because the punk was a no-show.

Let’s see him show his face Tuesday night in Staples Center, and take on Jack and the Lakers. They tell me the punk sat behind the Indiana Pacers’ bench in the last series next to Uncle Kracker, jeering and throwing obscenities at the Indiana players, flipping off the officials and waving a flag.

That might be enough to get Phil Jackson off the bench, at the very least to see what all the ruckus is behind him. I know I’d want to take a peek and see what Uncle Kracker looks like. Who knows, the Lakers might mistake Jackson’s curiosity for interest in the game.

As boring as the basketball is, I would imagine we’d get split screens from ABC with the punk and Jack rooting on their heroes, which would probably have a bigger effect on the outcome of the game than anything Karl Malone or Gary Payton does.

The newspaper said the punk was giddy after getting Rasheed Wallace’s jersey after the clinching game against the Pacers, and if you noticed how the punk dresses, a trip to Target probably would leave him feeling giddy too. He might want to show up Tuesday night dressed in that jersey, and show the celebrities here what it’s like to be the only famous person cheering for Detroit.

I looked up the bio on this Bob Ritchie guy, who is known as “Detroit’s Favorite Son,” and I can’t tell you for sure who should be more ticked off about that -- the punk or the good folks who live in Detroit. Anyway, as it turns out, the punk looks like he’s as old as Dwyre, in case you see some old man sitting beside you at Tuesday’s game carrying on like a fool. The dead giveaway will be if the guy starts singing, “I’m a cowboy, baby.” Dwyre can’t sing.

Right now we don’t know much more than the fact that every time Larry Brown coaches a team in the NBA Finals it wins the first game. And I’m guessing, loses the next four.

We also know the Lakers aren’t much for extending themselves unless they need to be extended. “As a team we didn’t come out with much energy,” Shaquille O’Neal said, and I blame that on Laker management, which gave us a very mellow Dick Van Dyke rendition of the national anthem.

We might not be at the desperate 0-2 level the Lakers found themselves after falling to San Antonio and returning home, but at that time I applauded the choice of 14-year-old Joelle James, who rocked Staples with her version of the anthem and sent the Lakers to four consecutive wins.

If we return from Detroit and still have to play more basketball, it might be time to place a call to her. I know this, the punk has already made it known that he’d like to sing the national anthem in Detroit, so those folks aren’t holding back.

If only Jack could sing -- now that would do it.

*

RAN INTO Staples Center boss Tim Leiweke, who was shepherding Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger around the building. Leiweke asked Schwarzenegger to speak to me. “Tell him -- if he writes one more bad thing about me, you’ll have them audit his taxes.”

The Terminator took a step forward, grabbed my hand and said, “Be nice to him. You hear me, be nice to him.”

I had no idea the guy was such a shrimp. That’s Schwarzenegger -- not Leiweke.

*

AT THE start of the second quarter, ABC sideline reporter Stuart Scott said Detroit Coach Larry Brown told his players during the timeout that the Lakers “are not guarding anyone.” I would have liked Michele Tafoya to check in from the Lakers’ huddle to hear whether Phil Jackson was telling his players the same thing.

*

ABC RAN a commercial in the first half that had Al Michaels talking to the NBA Finals trophy. Do you believe in miracles? No, the trophy did not respond to Michaels.

*

BEFORE THE game, Kobe Bryant hollered at me, “Come on, tell me something bad about my jump shot. Come on.”

Well, you know I don’t like to criticize, so I said nothing -- until after the game, after he hit only 10 of 27. “I’ll get here a little early before Tuesday’s game and work on that jump shot,” I told him, and from the look on his face, he thought I was kidding. The way he shot -- it’s no laughing matter.

*

ABC USED the NBA prime-time exposure to advertise a pair of new fall shows, “Wife Swap” and “Desperate Wives,” two shows, I guess, about wives who have grown tired of watching dull NBA games.

*

TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Tony Reyes:

“Thank you for admitting that you have a hole in your head. That confirms what I have suspected about you all along.”

I thought that was understood when I agreed to print the Last Word every day.

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.