Lakers Cut Off at the Knee : O’Neal’s Injury Means Layoff Until the Playoffs

The Lakers’ spot atop the Western Conference is suddenly a ledge, footing reduced to precarious Thursday with the news that Shaquille O’Neal could be lost for the remainder of the regular season because of a serious knee injury suffered the night before.

O’Neal will avoid surgery on the left leg, but his medical chart is lengthy: a partially torn ligament, a hyperextended joint, torn soft tissue that surrounds the knee, and a fractured bone. In all, team physician Steve Lombardo diagnosed after an evaluation in Inglewood that included X-rays and an MRI exam, the timetable for the return of the all-star center leading the team in five major categories is eight to 10 weeks.

Eight weeks from Thursday is April 10--or with five games remaining in the regular season. Ten weeks is April 24--the day the playoffs begin for some teams.

The first step in the recovery came when O’Neal, having flown from Denver to Los Angeles to meet with Lombardo about 7 1/2 hours before the Lakers’ 132-117 rout of the Nuggets at McNichols Arena, was fitted with a splint that covered much of the leg. He is expected to wear that two to three weeks.

O’Neal was not taking calls at home from the media. But friends who spoke with him Thursday afternoon all observed he was clearly down because of the news, pain that has become emotional as well as physical.

“He was obviously disappointed,” agent Leonard Armato said. “But he understands the process he has to go through and what’s ahead of him. Obviously, he’s real, real disappointed.

“But we’ve been informed by the doctor that he’ll be fine. It isn’t a [completely] torn ligament or something of that nature, something like Danny Manning had. It is the type of injury that he should return from 100%, and hopefully 100% before the playoffs.”

The injury occurred 3:34 into Wednesday night’s game at Minnesota, his first appearance after sitting out the previous two games, and missing All-Star weekend, because of a sprained ligament in the right knee. This time, it was the left knee, buckling under the pressure of O’Neal landing awkwardly after jumping for a lob pass from Nick Van Exel.

On the ground in obvious pain, especially in the moments immediately after the fall, O’Neal nonetheless walked to the huddle for a Laker timeout and then stayed in the game and played nearly five more minutes. Not only that, he scored 10 points between the injury and when he came out with 3:37 remaining in the first quarter.

The decision was made then to keep him out for good, although the extra action is not believed to have exacerbated the injury. By the end of the night, not long before the Lakers flew from Minneapolis to Denver, he was all but ruled out for the Nugget game, his likely destination having become Inglewood for the third knee examination by Lombardo in four days.

Some players weren’t even aware of the diagnosis when they arrived at McNichols Arena. So it was that they were all getting through this on the fly--Corie Blount, out since Jan. 10 because of a torn ligament in his right thumb, was in street clothes about 45 minutes before tipoff when told he was being activated to take the spot of O’Neal, who went on the injured list.

That Blount, who hasn’t even taken part in a full practice yet, might not have been ready wasn’t the point.

“Don’t have any stuff?” Coach Del Harris said to Blount.

Harris motioned to the slacks, shirt and jacket Blount had on.

“That stuff’s not too bad,” the coach said. “We could tape a number on back.”

Going with Plan B, the Lakers instead pulled his uniform out of a duffel bag, “borrowed” a pair of shoes the Nuggets had in a storage area, and sent Blount out. He played five minutes Thursday.

Elden Campbell, having performed well in three previous times as the starting center, now gets the job on a pretty permanent basis, with Travis Knight going from a reserve role to the opening lineup at power forward and everyone else moving up a notch on the depth chart. The indirect result could be that trade talks involving Sean Rooks will be halted.

Rooks is suddenly the backup center and Joe Kleine, having played 22 minutes before Thursday since arriving in the Robert Horry-Cedric Ceballos deal Jan. 10, a possible member of the new rotation. Along with Jerome Kersey and Horry, who have both moved up a weight class to play power forward when the Lakers go small, they will all try to fill O’Neal’s size 22s.

Someone asked Campbell if he’s up for the challenge.

“Does it matter?” came the response.

In other words, he’d better be.

“I think I’m going to give it my best shot,” Knight said. “Hopefully, we’ll do well. I’m sure we will. We’ve got a lot of good players.”

Said one of them, Eddie Jones: “I’m very confident. We kind of know what we’re going to get from Elden and Travis now. We know those guys are going to go out and play hard, especially Travis. He plays very hard.”

Now the Lakers get the chance to show what they can do long term. Lucky them.

“Would we rather play with Shaq?” Harris said. “Certainly, we would. But we feel we can play well in any event.”

They’ve got at least two months to prove it.

Life After Shaq

The Game: Nick Van Exel ties franchise record in 132-117 rout of Nuggets. C4

Mark Heisler: It’s harder without Shaquille O’Neal, but not impossible. C4

Role Change: Kobe Bryant is no longer the backup point guard.

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Knee Ligaments

Shaquille O’Neal’s MRI exam revealed a hyperextended left knee with damage including a torn capsule, a fractured bone, and a partial tear of the lateral collateral ligament.