Shaq’s Team Looks Super

The Lakers put the Clippers in their place, posting their second-biggest victory of the season, 123-95, Friday night before a sellout crowd of 16,094 at the Sports Arena.

And it might have been worse if Coach Del Harris hadn’t rested his starters for the entire fourth quarter as the Lakers extended their winning streak to four games.

The Clippers had that glazed look in their eyes against the Lakers, who shot a season-best 72.2% in the third quarter, and it wasn’t because of all those flashbulbs exploding each time Shaquille O’Neal dunked.

The Lakers (56-25), fighting the Seattle SuperSonics for their first Pacific Division title since 1989-90, will clinch it tonight if the Clippers beat the SuperSonics. Otherwise, they have to win Sunday afternoon’s regular-season finale at Portland.

O’Neal, sidelined for the last two games against the Clippers because of a knee injury, dunked his way to 18 points, six rebounds and five assists.

“When Superman is out, Lex Luther can get away with a lot,” O’Neal said.

“Superman came back. All crime was stopped. No dunking, no trash talking, no laughing.”

Clipper Coach Bill Fitch begged to differ.

“When we played them and won those two games, nobody picked us to win those two games,” Fitch said. “They’ve got a great team, they’ve got great balance and they’ve got great depth. Both the games that we beat them we had to play our tails off. We didn’t apologize to anybody.”

Although his streak of 10 consecutive free throws ended when he missed his first one, O’Neal made eight of 12 foul shots.

O’Neal impressed Clipper rookie Lorenzen Wright, who looked overmatched as O’Neal dunked his way to 17 points in the first half and the Lakers took a 66-54 halftime lead.

“It was hard, just like I thought it would be,” Wright said. “He’s a big guy and he’s very strong. I just tried to keep him out of the lane until my help came.

“It was embarrassing. We played terrible. I don’t think we had our minds on the game because we know we’re in the playoffs.”

O’Neal also demonstrated his proficiency as a passer, tossing a no-look, behind-the-back pass to set up Robert Horry for a layup in the third quarter.

O’Neal, who sat out 28 games, has scored 123 points (30.8 average) and grabbed 42 rebounds (10.5) in four games since he was activated.

“They’re a much different team with Shaq,” Fitch said. “I think the other guys play with a lot more confidence when he’s out there than they do when he’s not out there.”

The other four Laker starters, Elden Campbell, Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel and Horry, scored in double figures.

“I don’t know what they could have done to beat us,” Van Exel said. “We were real focused. We wanted this one real bad.”

Campbell made eight of 11 shots and had 21 points. Van Exel had 15 points and 10 assists. Horry and Jones had 14 points each as the Lakers won for the 11th time in 13 games.

Guard Darrick Martin, who helped lead the Clippers to their best record in four seasons, played only six scoreless minutes.

“I’ve got six guards and I wanted to look at them all tonight,” Fitch said. “I saw enough of him early. We were down 15 when he came out and we were down 30 when the game was over.”

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* VICTORY CIGAR

The Celtics defeated the 76ers to avoid a winless season in the Atlantic Division. C7