The Glove Turns the Dialogue His Way

Not quite what you expected, was it? A surprising wrinkle. A Twist-mas story. A guy the Lakers traded beat them Sunday ... and his name was Gary Payton.

In a game teeming with “sidebar issues,” as Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley called them, Payton became the main story line.

You know Shaquille O’Neal desperately wanted to beat his former team, so much so that his teammates thought he looked anxious as he tossed up assorted bricks and turned the ball over six times.

Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant appeared to be cruising to a 40-point game and a measure of redemption against O’Neal.

Then Payton’s defense contributed to a five-for-14 second half by Bryant. And Payton produced just as many second-half baskets in the paint as O’Neal.

Finally, with the game on the line, Payton made a three-pointer from the left corner that gave him 21 points and gave the Heat the lead for good in its 97-92 victory at American Airlines Arena.

And so the first name mentioned by both coaches afterward was Payton’s.

He kept getting to the hoop for layups and knocking down jump shots, making nine of 11 shots, all the while unleashing a steady stream of yapping that got Lamar Odom so agitated he had to be restrained from going at Payton after the game.

Payton, at 37, looked more like GP than AARP.

“He played good defense, he was out there talking trash, like the old Glove,” O’Neal said. “Well, he is an old Glove. But like the old Glove.”

As in the Seattle SuperSonics’ version, circa 1994.

It turned out he was bigger than Kobe versus Shaq or Pat Riley versus Phil Jackson or even Kobe versus Dwyane Wade.

Oh, Payton had his own “versus” here. A couple of them. You remember the look on Payton’s expressive face when Jackson kept him on the bench during the 2004 playoffs. Then he felt betrayed when the Lakers traded him to Boston after his lone season in L.A..

But on the pregame hype checklist, Payton versus Jackson and Mitch Kupchak ranked way down around Brian Cook versus Udonis Haslem.

It didn’t help that Payton was unwilling to stir up any bad feelings before or after the game.

“I thought we were going to be together for a minute,” he said of his time in L.A. “But they traded Shaq, they did what they had to do. They wanted to go a new route. I’m not mad about it. I’m happy where I’m at right now.”

Riley looked pretty happy too Sunday. Payton keeps justifying Riley’s decision to sign him this summer, even after Riley had retooled the roster by acquiring ballhandling forward Antoine Walker and point guard Jason Williams.

“We didn’t bring him in here on a gurney,” Riley said. “This is not a quick trip to South Beach and have some fun in the sun, Gary. And I think he realizes that. I think we’ve developed a very good understanding about what it is he has to do.”

The key to keeping Payton happy and productive is letting him do what he wants to do.

Payton has probably been the biggest beneficiary since Riley replaced Stan Van Gundy as the Heat’s coach two weeks ago. Payton has scored in double figures five times in the last seven games after doing it six times in 23 games under Van Gundy. One reason is that he started the seven games Williams sat out because of tendinitis in his knee. But it’s also obvious that Payton is better off when he gets to run things on his own.

O’Neal likened it to the difference between “a loose dog and a dog on a leash.”

“Getting in the wide-open court, creating plays and taking shots when you can -- [Riley’s] given us the freedom to do that,” Payton said.

Payton didn’t give any freedom to the 6-foot-6 Bryant. Although Payton and Wade are listed at 6-4, they argue over who’s taller.

“Gary’s got a pointed dome in the back, so he gets him by about a quarter of an inch,” Riley said.

Payton also had the experience of playing against Bryant for seven years and with him for one. So Bryant drew four fouls -- including one flagrant -- on Wade en route to scoring 33 points through the first three quarters. But with Payton drawing the primary assignment in the fourth quarter, Bryant scored only four points.

He says he likes Bryant, so his chats with him never got as personal as they did with Odom.

“Some of the players that you get against, their mentality is they want to get mad and take it against you,” Payton said. “Then they start thinking about you all the time. My mental toughness is, I don’t care. I can talk and I’m not going to worry about you no more. I’m going to go out and make shots and do the things that I’ve got to do.”

Miami needed him to do those things Sunday. The Heat needed this more than the Lakers. There’s a sense of urgency bordering on desperation with Riley’s squad. When they traded for O’Neal, they became all about winning championships right now.

The Heat didn’t look championship-ready, especially when compared with the whipping the Detroit Pistons put on the San Antonio Spurs in the first game of the Christmas doubleheader.

The Lakers, even in defeat, looked on track for their current agenda: getting better and making the playoffs. Bryant found it encouraging that they had a chance right until he missed a three-point shot with three seconds left.

“I think teams know that you can’t just come in here and roll over us,” Bryant said. “They’re going to have to deal with us. It’s a start.”

But the story of the day was the news flash that Payton isn’t finished.