They sounded like a concession speech.

 "What I'm starting to feel like now," Iverson said, "is that the way to beat those guys is to really blow them out to have a chance. And the way things are going, that's just not going to happen."

 No, it wasn't.

 The Los Angeles Lakers humbled opposing teams, leaving them shaking their heads, questioning their own skills and doubting their own abilities. And that was usually after Game 2 or Game 3.

 The Lakers were so dominant in the postseason that teams were practically giving up when there were games left to be played.

 The night after Iverson's acknowledgment, the Lakers finished off the 76ers to make their postseason record 15-1 -- the best in league history.

 Yet as Los Angeles was preparing to seek a third consecutive championship, the buzz around the league centered on the player who led the NBA's last two threepeaters: Michael Jordan.

 He was thought to be retired as a player, but as the spring and summer unfolded it became clearer with each workout and each non-denial that the game's greatest player was planning a comeback.

 Jordan finally made it official on the eve of training camp for 2001-02, explaining his return as a case of having "an itch that needed to be scratched."

 Jordan became the focus of the preseason, looking fantastic some nights and all-too-human on others as he took on the task of trying to turn the perennially losing Wizards into a winning team.

 The Lakers, meanwhile, opened the current season 15-1, making them 38-2 dating to the end of the last regular season.

 Only a loss to Philadelphia in Game 1 of the NBA Finals kept Los Angeles from being the first team to go undefeated through the playoffs.

 "Somebody told me tonight that we made history," O'Neal said on the night the Lakers wrapped up the title. "We have the best record in winning a championship. So that's another thing I can tell my sons: The Big Historian."

 Although the Lakers' romp through the postseason was beyond impressive, nobody saw it coming just a couple of months earlier. A rift had developed between O'Neal and Kobe Bryant over their roles in the offense, with the two superstars taking thinly veiled shots at each other in the media while coach Phil Jackson tried to play peacemaker.

 After a loss at home to the New York Knicks on April 1, the Lakers had dropped three of four games and five of eight. They were in fourth place in the Western Conference, meaning that home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs was no sure thing.

 It would be more than two months before the Lakers would lose again.

 Los Angeles won its final eight regular-season games and then simply manhandled the Trail Blazers in the first round of the playoffs, winning the games by 13, 18 and 13 points.

 "I'm not ready for it to be over," Portland's Scottie Pippen said on the eve of Game 3. "It's looking like it's about to be over, but I'm not ready for that. We have to come out and play for some pride."

 The Lakers went on to sweep the Sacramento Kings in the second round, winning Game 3 at Arco Arena by 22 points, and then took Games 1 and 2 of the Western Conference finals against San Antonio despite the Spurs holding the homecourt advantage.

 In Games 3 and 4 at the Staples Center, the Spurs exuded zero confidence as the Lakers hammered them 111-72 and 111-82.

 "Custer had no idea. That's my statement. Figure it out," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "The roll they're on is ridiculous."

 That roll came to a temporary halt in Game 1 of the finals. Iverson, who led the 76ers to thrilling Game 7 victories over Toronto and Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference playoffs, scored 48 points to lead Philadelphia to an overtime victory in the opener that ended the Lakers' 19-game winning streak.

 O'Neal nearly had a quadruple double in Game 2 with 28 points, 20 rebounds, nine assists and eight blocks, and the momentum shifted decisively toward the Lakers.

 Game 3 was close, Game 4 was not and Game 5 ended it -- a 108-96 victory that left Bryant admitting that he was dreaming of building a dynasty.

 For Jordan -- far removed from his dynastic days with the Chicago Bulls -- and the Wizards, the early results were not good. The more recent ones were better, though, as Washington followed the longest losing streak of Jordan's career -- eight games -- by stringing together a half-dozen consecutive victories.

 Perhaps it is a sign that better things are ahead for Jordan -- maybe even a trip to the NBA Finals out of the wide-open Eastern Conference.

 If Jordan makes it there by next June, chances are he'll run into his old coach, O'Neal and Bryant.

 One can only wonder if that trio would cause Jordan to concede defeat before the series was finished.