It Has Been Shaq, Rattle, Roll

He’s getting quicker, smarter, more confident. You could see it in his eyes, feel it in his moves.

A couple of more games like this one, and Shaquille O’Neal might finally perfect the chicken shake.

At least, fix the celebration dance so it doesn’t look quite so much like an exorcism.

“Well, it was better this time,” said Merton Hanks, the San Francisco 49er who invented the move used by Shaq in the final minutes of the Lakers’ 112-100 victory over the Seattle Supersonics Sunday.

Hanks was in the Great Western Forum stands, and Shaq looked at him before sinking two free throws and erupting in the funky walk.

Better? “Well,” Hanks said, thinking a moment. “At least he didn’t hurt himself.”

Shaq laughed. For three weeks, he has been laughing, the world’s biggest kid having the time of his life in the world’s biggest playground.

His streaking team is one game from clinching a Western Conference semifinal victory over the favored SuperSonics. One game from a possible rematch with the hated Utah Jazz.

Perhaps only a handful of games from the Chicago Bulls?

The Forum shakes. The town buzzes. This place hasn’t been so excited about a sport since Kirk Gibson was hobbling to the plate against Dennis Eckersley.

In the middle of it all, Shaq hustles, hits, hollers, hoists himself to a higher level even more dramatically than in that genie flick.

And laughs.

The first words he shouted to the assembled media Sunday afternoon after perhaps the most complete big game of his career went something like this:

“Who stole my underwear??”

On Saturday afternoon, he was rolling around the floor of the Laker locker room with the two-year-old son of Laker publicity official Erikk Aldridge, cradling him in his giant arms, bouncing him off his giant chest.

On Sunday afternoon, he was doing the same to the SuperSonics.

They figured he might score a little bit. But seven assists? Seventy-five percent free-throw shooting? Five blocked shots?

What many in Seattle did not count on, what many in this town have not counted on, is this:

Shaquille O’Neal apparently wants to be about more than scoring, superhero movies and soft drink commercials.

He wants to be about championships.

He doesn’t just want to be the big bully in the corner.

He wants to be the guy running the room.

If you didn’t believe it before now, you believed it Sunday, when he slogged through the trenches like a lineman while running the offense like a quarterback.

How many other 7-foot-1, 315 pounders can score 39 points in a game . . . and all you want to talk about is his passing?

“One time he found me and I was like, dang, how did he see me?” said Robert Horry. “He’s gotten real good at holding the ball with one hand, holding the man off with another hand, and kicking it you.”

He’s become good at a lot of things, which has surprised a lot of people.

He came to town two years ago with a reputation of being more flash than crash. The reputation has been more difficult for him to shake than Karl Malone.

When he’s said or done something silly, many, including this corner, have jumped on him.

When he has just scored 28 points with 12 rebounds, nobody has said anything, because he, like, always does that.

Sunday was another in a string of recent examples of why it’s time for all of us to take a closer look.

The Lakers are playing better than any team still suiting up, and Shaq is putting his monogram on all of it.

Postseason pressure? Shaq has willingly become the center of all the media attention, answering all the tough questions, facing all the issues, allowing his teammates to breath.

“When you are on a team with a superstar, it’s great when that person takes it all on, good or bad,” said Corie Blount. “That’s what Shaq is doing.”

Blount played in Chicago with Michael Jordan, who for years has done precisely that.

Court leadership? The temperamental Lakers have been under total control despite increasing elbows and cheap shots, probably because Shaq is.

As the playoffs continue and the odds of shutting him down get more remote, the low post looking increasingly like a boxing ring.

Except Shaq responds with nothing more dramatic than a slow walk to the foul line.

“Early in the season, you might need to make a statement, but not now,” he said. “This is the playoffs, you have to take it.”

A basic philosophy, perhaps, except when you consider that the Miami Heat are no longer playing because their center did not buy into it.

Free throws? Well, OK, despite Tuesday’s good work, he is still only 48 of 92 in the playoffs.

The Lakers best hope is that as well as Shaq and his teammates are playing, perhaps that won’t matter.

It certainly hasn’t mattered to the SuperSonics.

Said Nate McMillan of Shaq: “He has totally dominated this series.”

Even if some would still argue his methods.

Dale Ellis continued Coach George Karl’s lecture series on rules Sunday by saying, “You see [Shaq] every time he touches the ball. He catches the ball and does the bunny hop, that’s a walk. It’s obvious and everybody in the arena sees it.”

Yes, Shaq hops, sometimes even more blatantly than others. On one drive Sunday, he hopped about 10 feet before his shot. It wasn’t a layup, it was a triple jump.

But guess what? In today’s NBA, hopping is legal.

Funny, but when all else failed against Jordan in the first years of his playoff greatness, everyone also accused him of cheating.

“When I was in the finals, I remember Michael Jordan telling me that you must learn to fail before you learn to succeed,” Shaq said. “Well, I’ve failed six times. Now, I’m very, very hungry.”

If only somebody could convince him to lay off the chicken shakes.