Like Shaq, the Lakers a No-Show

As if there weren’t enough problems for the Lakers who did show Sunday afternoon, the Laker who didn’t got drilled even worse. If that’s possible.

They were pummeled and Shaquille O’Neal was trashed, both courtesy of the same Orlando Magic, on a mission and not even trying to hide it. The final score of 110-84 in what tied the Lakers’ biggest loss of the season came with their all-star center, having planned to attend and sit on the bench, getting only as close as the back entrance before disappearing, not unlike the team as a whole.

He dropped off Jerome Crawford, the Lakers’ security man, offered brief small talk on how he’ll see everyone next season, and then drove off from Orlando Arena to “chill” and watch the game on television. Deciding not to waste the near miss, Magic players and fans came together and roasted O’Neal anyway, in absentia.

“I knew Shaq wasn’t going to show up,” forward Horace Grant said. “He talks a lot, but I knew he wasn’t going to show up.”

Said Nick Anderson, the one former teammate O’Neal had singled out with negative comments: “Say what you have to say, but if you’re so much of a man and you’re in town, why not come here?”

Not that the locals were ready for him or anything. His decision to come down for the weekend, the one Laker road game he has attended since the Feb. 12 knee injury, had been talk-radio fodder in Florida for most of the week, calls for his head from the “country, every-day-going-to-Disney fans” who had been his own the previous four years.

So when the day itself finally arrived, the fans of Orlando were revved to the point of a championship-series game, and the team of Orlando wasn’t far behind. Rony Seikaly, who became the replacement for O’Neal after the short-lived Felton Spencer Era, got a huge ovation during pregame introductions, meant for Shaq to hear as much as Seikaly himself. And the signs came out.

L.A. MISSES SHAQ

WE DON’T

Or:

SHAQ’S not worth a PENNY

Or:

WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON?

JUDAS-BRUTUS-SHAQ

Or:

$HAQ

“I was walking around three or four days ago, when we still had a couple of games to go, and this was like the game everybody wanted,” Seikaly said. “If they could have picked one game for us to get a blowout, this was it.

“You didn’t need to say much. You could see the guys ready to go. Ready to go from the beginning.”

Everyone else saw it soon after, the Magic bolting from the gate, needing only 7:47 to build an 11-point lead, leading by 17 at the end of the first quarter and by 31 late in the second. The 66 points heading into intermission was Orlando’s most for a half this season.

“Well,” Laker Coach Del Harris said, “it certainly wasn’t the referees.”

And still the visitors couldn’t get off that easy--they had a 32-point deficit, 84-52, in the third period. The comeback came in the fourth, when they rallied within 19 with 4:44 remaining.

Said Seikaly, who responded with 11 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks: “I think it was a good present for our fans.”

Not to mention their team.

“We came out with a lot of aggression,” Anderson said. “The fans were behind us. We wanted this game probably more than any one this season. We played like it. Richie [Adubato] coached like it.”

Not to mention their starting shooting guard.

“That had a lot to do with it,” Anderson said of being ready to respond to O’Neal on the court and then making five of nine three-pointers and finishing with 21 points to tie Penny Hardaway for team-high honors. “And, I know I can play this game . . . I can be tough. Today was one of those days when you needed to be tough.”

The Lakers more than understood what all the commotion was about. They had wanted to win here for O’Neal for the same reasons the Magic wanted to beat him. The emotions. On this day, those far outweighed the standings.

Which is why they felt so bad.

“The fans were behind them and I think they pretty much rode the fans,” Nick Van Exel said. “They were so pumped up and ready for this game. We were too, but we didn’t put out half the energy as they did.

“We definitely wanted to win for the big fella. He wanted to be here, but I don’t know what happened. I guess they wanted to win too.”

The only thing that tainted it was O’Neal not having to suffer through it in person, and even that couldn’t take much away. The Magic and their fans had what they really wanted, or at least what they wanted and the law allowed.

They had Shaq on the losing team, sitting there or not.

“What’s he going to say: ‘Your mother’s mustache’ or ‘So’s your old man’?” Harris said. “But next year, he’ll be able to compete and answer whatever taunts there may be.

“He should come here when he can defend himself. Today, he just would have been a sitting-duck target.”

In that case, he would have fit right in.