Lakers Survive Raptors

The Lakers had another lottery team on the line Sunday night. Or was that the other way around?

On the verge of becoming a notch on the gun belt of an expansion club, as if the blowout-turned-heartbreak two nights earlier against the Clippers wasn’t still enough of a wound, the Lakers recovered just in time. In overtime is more like it, using an 11-3 run in the extra period to get past the Toronto Raptors, 98-90, before 16,839 at the Forum.

Eddie Jones had 27 points and four steals, Elden Campbell 24 points and four blocks and Jerome Kersey his second double-double in four games, this one with 11 points and a season-high 11 rebounds. And the Lakers had survived, in the game and on the homestand they salvaged at 3-2, with victories over lottery-bound New Jersey, Golden State and Toronto.

“Losing at home, two in a row, and going on the road?” Jones said. “The confidence probably wouldn’t have been there.”

Added Kersey, who has so nailed down the starting job at small forward that George McCloud, once a challenger there, didn’t even get off the bench: “It was very important, after stumbling here in the games we had at home. Going on the road, especially playing [tonight], we didn’t need to have any downers, especially against Toronto.”

Officially, the night started with the obligatory first-half struggles for the Lakers, this time when their 12-point lead in the opening quarter was erased and eventually became only a 49-48 advantage at intermission. Unofficially, though, there was an encouraging sign: Robert Horry back in purple for the first time.

It was only his practice gear, and it was only to shoot around before the game, but it’s also the first time he’d gotten so far since suffering the sprained knee ligament one month ago. Other such workouts have come in private as he works toward a March 26 return against the Milwaukee Bucks at the Forum.

“I think I’ll be ready by that time,” Horry said. “I won’t be 100%, but as good as I’m going to get by that time.”

Especially since he will likely be activated without so much as practicing with the Lakers. So his conditioning will have to come on the fly, the first workout with the team not coming until what should be two games into his comeback.

The priority while the Lakers head out on a five-game trip that begins tonight at Denver, which Horry will skip while going through the final stages of his rehabilitation, is on agility and flexibility. He has been running at full speed, but needs progress on lateral movements. Likewise, he can jump, but feels soreness when lifting the left leg high on a layup.

This comes as the timetable for Shaquille O’Neal’s return becomes clearer. To him, that is.

The Lakers had been saying all along, when the severity of the knee injury was first determined and in a recent update, that he would probably be back late in the regular season or the start of the playoffs. It’s just that O’Neal had declared April 2 as his return date. But Sunday, conceding the inevitable, he said the return would actually come when the doctors give the OK.

“Probably, yeah,” O’Neal said.

In the meantime, he rehabilitate twice a day, about five hours in all, sessions that include everything from weightlifting and running (but no jumping of significance) to electrical stimulation and massages on the wounded knee. It’s been that way, in various degrees, for about four weeks, just as it will be for about four more.

Time for a vacation. Say, to Orlando on Saturday and returning to Los Angeles on Monday, a stay just long enough to attend the Lakers’ game Sunday against the Magic, what surely would have been a charged game with O’Neal playing and now may at least be the best sideshow in the league this season with him on the bench.