Lakers honor late Celtics great KC Jones with moment of silence

LOS ANGELES — Typically, there’s not much love in Staples Center for a Boston Celtic – especially one who authored so much pain for the Lakers.

But before the national anthem on Christmas Day, the Lakers offered a moment of silence for K.C. Jones, who died Friday at 88, leaving behind a hand in 12 championships and an indelible legacy of winning.

The player and coach won 11 of his 12 championships with the Celtics, with eight coming during the Celtics’ era of dominance in the late ’50s and ’60s alongside his college and pro teammate Bill Russell. In five of those title runs, Boston topped the Lakers.

But when the Lakers finally broke through in 1972 to win a championship themselves, Jones was an assistant on the team. In a sense, it was fitting that the Lakers sported baby blue jerseys harkening to the era of Elgin Baylor and Jerry West on Friday night.

Jones led the Celtics to two championships during a run of four straight Finals appearances between 1984 and 1987. Three of those series were played against the Lakers, coaching Hall-of-Famer-studded teams starring Larry Bird and Kevin McHale.

Dallas coach Rick Carlisle played for Jones on several of those Boston teams, and remembered him as a soft-spoken, attention-shunning man who picked his moments to hammer home messages in critical points in the season. While he wasn’t afraid to stand toe-to-toe with his stars, he had an air of compassion, Carlisle said.

“He was a guy who you always knew cared about the guys he coached,” he said. “Just a very, very special human being.”

Jones won 577 games in his coaching career, which also saw him coach in Washington and Seattle. He is one of just eight players to win an NBA Finals, an NCAA championship and an Olympic gold medal (Anthony Davis is also in that group).

Lakers keeping 11 in rotation for now

For the second game in a row, the Lakers squeezed in 11 players into the first-half rotation.

If it seems a little clunky, it is. Talen Horton-Tucker played a preseason that showed enough promise to justify minutes, adding him to a bench rotation which already includes Kyle Kuzma, Wesley Matthews, Alex Caruso and Markieff Morris. The second-year wing played just 4:28 in the first-half stint – he only scored his five points in the second half in garbage minutes when the Lakers were well set to win.

Lakers coach Frank Vogel acknowledged the untenable nature of having 11 players in his rotation, saying he wouldn’t play all 72 games this season that way “for sure.” But given that the preseason was cut to just four games, he still feels that he wants to test different lineups and combinations.

“For now, on a game-to-game basis, that’s what we’re gonna continue to do,” he said. “We’re still in the evaluation phase and familiarity phase with these guys with combinations and getting to know each other.”