Fisher Assists Against Denver

The practices that Del Harris liked, Derek Fisher needed. Two days of working with the Laker starters, just in case, while Nick Van Exel rested his sore left knee. Two days of pumping himself up.

“I told myself I’d get 12 assists,” Fisher said.

He lied. With Van Exel sidelined Wednesday because of the chronic injury, Fisher moved to the opening lineup and to the forefront, getting 13 assists to set a career high and four steals to tie another in the 132-114 victory over the Denver Nuggets before 15,067 at the Great Western Forum, equaling the Lakers’ largest scoring output of the season.

Shaquille O’Neal contributed 34 points and 10 rebounds, making him the first Laker since Magic Johnson in December of 1986 to score more than 30 in four consecutive games.

Fisher’s showing--which came along with Kobe Bryant’s return to backup point guard--was especially impressive in that it came at a time when he could hardly be expected to be crisp, the minutes having disappeared of late. So he got the two days of practice, hoped for the best, then got it, playing 35 minutes in the process, eight more than any other game this season.

“It feels really good,” he said. “We didn’t play as good start to finish as I had hoped. But I hoped we would come out with energy and effort, and we did.”

The replacement being the perfect example.

“He did a terrific job,” Harris said. “Aggressive, 13 assists you’ve got to love. He got the ball to the right people and did a fine job of controlling the game out there.”

This was hardly the first Bryant-as-ballhandler sighting, of course. He regularly played the point last season as a rookie, when last seen getting most of the backup minutes there in the second-round playoff series against Utah, and this season he has had the ball at most every end-of-quarter situation.

The significance was that this marked his first real action there in 1997-98, mainly because Van Exel and Fisher had been healthy the first 36 games. And it officially meant an end to the notion that one of the positives of the Jon Barry free-agent signing in the summer would be that he could play both backcourt spots.

“Kobe wanted to do it,” Harris said. “I was hoping when we got Jon Barry that he’d be more of a guy to back up [point guard] and [shooting guard]. But Jon just has not felt comfortable at backup [point guard]. While I have confidence in him, I just don’t want to put a guy in there unless he’s eager with it.”

So Barry, also bumped up the depth chart because of Van Exel’s injury, got all eight of his first-half minutes at shooting guard, though simply getting in with the game still in doubt was noteworthy for him as well. And Bryant played backup point guard.

And backup shooting guard.

And backup small forward.

Harris used him at all three spots in the first half alone, a sign more of Laker versatility than desperation, though this didn’t exactly start as the night of cruise control they may have hoped. Fisher, meanwhile, had eight assists through intermission in 16 minutes, already more time than he had gotten in nine of the 12 previous full games.

This, needless to say, was as close as the Lakers were going to come to an ideal time to deal with the absence of Van Exel and the ramifications that came with it. The Nuggets, after all, not only came in with a 2-32 mark, were not only winless in 18 tries on the road, and not only had a 17-game losing streak, but were playing the second night of a back-to-back, after losing in Denver to the Magic. Bad and tired.

On the other hand, imagine the mouth-dropping that would accompany a Nugget victory.

“I’m not thinking about that,” Bryant said going in about the pressure of playing Denver. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re not going to lose.”

Added Rick Fox: “I don’t even like to think in those terms. It’s like saying, ‘Don’t think about drinking a beer right now.’ Then you’re going to think about drinking a beer.”

Bartender?

Never mind. The Lakers had an eight-point lead by late in the first quarter and a 10-point cushion early in the second, then pushed that to 15 just before halftime. It got as bad as 26 in the third quarter, when O’Neal reached the 30-point plateau.