Lakers: As Good as It Gets

These were the Lakers who mend your broken hearts. The ones who need only a couple hours to offset weeks of disappointment and frustration, sometimes needing only minutes. Twelve of them on Sunday afternoon, for example.

Unleashing a third-quarter blitz that rivaled any stretch they have played this season, the Lakers produced what may have been their best game in several seasons. They did not merely beat the Chicago Bulls, but dominated the defending champions, 112-87, before a capacity 17,505 at the Great Western Forum while receiving big production from six players, offering a reminder of what could be even while playing without two injured starters.

It was not their potential arriving like a thunderclap so much as it was their current reality, that the Lakers can be the overpowering team imagined if the energy exists like it did on this day. Of course, that it doesn’t always exist is why they can also be the confounding team.

“Oh, yeah,” Derek Fisher said after his second commendable showing in place of Nick Van Exel at point guard. “I don’t know if you’d say frustrating. I don’t know the word. But we’re not comprehending why we can’t do this all the time.”

This being a 34-11 burst to turn a four-point lead at halftime into a 27-point rout, the fewest points the Lakers have given up in a quarter this season.

Or shooting 51.9% and scoring 112 points against the team that came in with a defense ranked fourth and third in the league, respectively, in those categories.

Or playing without Van Exel (strained hip flexor) and Robert Horry (strained abdominal muscle) and having Corie Blount at power forward respond with a team-high 13 rebounds, seven points and seven assists in his first start of the season and having Fisher contribute eight points, seven assists, seven rebounds and three steals. While Rick Fox scored 25 points for his second big offensive output in three days, Shaquille O’Neal added 24 and Eddie Jones and Kobe Bryant got 20 each.

“Our team,” Fisher said, “came with an effort that you can’t really stop.”

Only one they can hope to contain. As in keeping it for future use.

“I couldn’t have asked for more in terms of effort, energy and team play,” Coach Del Harris said. “It’s really unusual for a team to go from start to finish against one of the top teams in the league--and in this case the top team in the league--and withstand throughout the game to where the other team never really gets a run at you.

“We’ve had some good games. But I don’t think any better than this.”

He meant for the season. At least until thinking about it for a second.

“I don’t know of too many better in my four years here, to put it in perspective,” Harris said.

Indeed, the victory came with such a force, and with such speed considering the 17-2 run to open the second half, that even some of the Lakers were surprised, Pleasantly, of course. Then again, they also had the perspective that history has brought--that nothing is safe against the Bulls, like the 19-point lead last season in Chicago that became an overtime loss.

This time, the Lakers partied on. When the 19-point lead came again, they pushed it to 25, and then, finally, 27 at the end of a quarter in which they made 14 of 22 shots (63.6%).

Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen exited near the end of that third quarter and barely returned, playing only four and five minutes, respectively, in the fourth. Jordan finished with a game-high 31 points, but made only 11 of 26 attempts, while Pippen was held to 10 shots and 13 points.

“I almost let them sit the whole [rest of the] game,” Bull Coach Phil Jackson said of Jordan and Pippen. “I was angry at the team. I felt like they let us down in the third quarter.”

Imagine how he felt in the fourth. The Lakers could have been vulnerable, shooting only 35.3% and wasting opportunities at the line, but their cushion never dropped below 20. It got as big as 28, at 94-66 with 11:09 remaining and then at 112-84 with 48 seconds left.

The final 25-point margin became the Bulls’ second-biggest loss, bettered, or worsened, only by the 99-72 setback Jan. 7 at Miami. It also approached the biggest Laker victory in the 115-game series, the record of 27 having been set 30 years ago this month. Maybe because Chicago got caught looking ahead--to playing tonight at Denver?

“We just wanted to beat a great team at home, and we did just what we’re supposed to do,” O’Neal said. “This wasn’t a statement game or a revenge game. We just did our job.”

The way they’re capable of doing it.