Lakers Are Kings for Only One Day

By TIM KAWAKAMI

Dec. 9, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO —

The Kings went to hyper-speed, and the Lakers simply went hyper here Wednesday.

In the first matchup of these Pacific Division front-runners, the Lakers experienced basketball vertigo: blurry intentions, wrong angles and balls bouncing randomly.

When Sacramento went fast, the Lakers got dizzy.

Usual stalwarts Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Ron Harper combined to commit 16 turnovers, which tossed the Lakers into a hard spin, and resulted in a 103-91 loss to the rambling, scrambling Sacramento Kings, before 17,317 at Arco Arena.

“I hate it,” Bryant said when asked about his critical turnovers late in the game. “I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. . . .

“You want to try so bad to make up for it. Try to cancel that and get that out of your game as much as you can. But you just have to steady it, and see why that happens in certain situations.”

The defeat ended the Lakers’ seven-game winning streak, knocked them into a first-place tie with Portland in the division, and, by dropping their record to 15-5, halted their one-day hold on the NBA’s best record.

Bryant, who got his first start of the season after coming off the bench his first four games, scored 27 points, but committed six turnovers, including three huge miscues in a three-minute span from the end of the third quarter into the beginning of the fourth as the Kings fended off the Lakers’ best charge.

O’Neal also scored 27, but got into early foul trouble, wasn’t able to fully assert himself offensively or defensively, and committed five turnovers of his own.

Harper was 0 for 7 from the field and committed five turnovers.

Glen Rice also struggled, making only three of his 12 shot attempts.

Meanwhile, the Kings, who took the lead with a 32-point second quarter and never trailed after that, took advantage of the Laker fumblings, scoring 12 fastbreak points (to the Lakers’ zero), and outrebounded the Lakers, 45-37.

Predrag Stojakovic came off the bench to score 19 points, Chris Webber scored 20 with 12 rebounds and Jason Williams scored 19 with five assists.

And every time the Lakers tried a comeback, the ball would kick away or fly away or be dribbled out of bounds.

“Kobe had a number of critical errors for us in a stretch of the game,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said.

“You know, plays at the end of the third quarter, we could’ve broke that lead back down to seven, five, but we had a couple of turnovers.”

Bryant--who also kept the Lakers around later in the game with several aerial slashes to the hoop--said he’s still trying to regain the timing and rhythm he lost while sitting out seven weeks because of a broken right hand.

But Bryant, who also had six rebounds and five assists replacing Derek Fisher in the starting lineup, blamed himself for sometimes trying to do too much.

“He’s coming back and he’s trying to find himself,” forward Rick Fox said. “I’m sure right now he’s pressing a little bit to find a rhythm with us. . . .

“Patience, try to remember patience. I hope he recognizes he doesn’t have to save the world. We were doing pretty good. Come along and be a part of this.

“It’ll be fine. He’s an addition, he’s not a subtraction.”

O’Neal, who picked up two fouls in the first quarter, said he had to ease off on the defensive interior in order to remain in the game.

“I wanted to stay in the game, and they were calling it b.s. like that,” O’Neal said. “What else can I do?”

The Kings have now beaten the Lakers three times in four games dating back to last season, but O’Neal, for one, was not ready to agree that there is something about Sacramento that the Lakers cannot handle.

“They’re good,” O’Neal said, “but we just didn’t have a rhythm today.”

Asked what went wrong, O’Neal struck a familiar theme: The Lakers need to pass the ball around patiently in their half-court offense, instead of dribbling into the middle of defenses.

“We just have to find a way [to pass it inside],” O’Neal said, “rather than going individually and doing all that b.s.”

For player postgame comments from last night’s Lakers-Kings game on the Times’ Web site, go to: https://www.latimes.com/sports

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Los Angeles Lakers

NBA’S BEST

No. Team Record Pct. 1. Miami 14-4 .778 2. Lakers 15-5 .750 2. Portland 15-5 .750 2. Sacramento 12-4 .750 5. Seattle 14-5 .737

*--*

KEY STATS

36-16

Sacramento’s bench scoring vs. Lakers’ bench scoring

3-19 (15.8%)

Combined shooting of Glen Rice and Ron Harper from the field