Weary Lakers See the Light

The Lakers’ journey of a thousand miles (and then some) ended with a single borrowed blue sweatsuit.

And a coach who looked like he had just run a marathon. And a trapeze-artist 20-year-old who missed a dunk at the buzzer, then slumped into the basket standard, exhausted and relieved.

This winding, grinding six-game, nine-day lockout created Laker trip closed with a 96-93 victory Monday over the Mavericks at Reunion Arena, notable not so much for high-quality play but for the sincere high-fives at the end.

It was a whirlwind. It was not particularly a successful trip, not particularly a failure--three wins, three losses, two victories to finish it off.

This victory didn’t have the wallop of the huge second-half comeback against Orlando on Sunday, but the Lakers were not complaining after beating the Mavericks for the 15th consecutive time.

“It was a little bit less than what I thought we’d get when we started off the road trip,” Coach Kurt Rambis said. “But it was a long, hard trip. . . . We made a lot of adjustments and feel very fortunate to be out of it 3-3.”

Most important, as the Lakers gathered their garb and headed to their chartered plane Monday night--with Shaquille O’Neal gamely wearing a blue Mavericks XXXXL sweatsuit borrowed from Shawn Bradley after O’Neal’s luggage was lost en route from Orlando--it was over.

“Those guys at the airport in Orlando, they took my stuff,” O’Neal said.

Home free, for four consecutive games at the Great Western Forum, and seven of their next eight.

“It’s going to be nice to see the Forum,” said Kobe Bryant, who scored 21 points and missed a windmill slam at the buzzer. “We’re ready to get home.”

Said forward Rick Fox: “Guys want to actually get back to their homes, you know, see what it’s like to be back home. It’s been a long time, man.”

Not only was this the bell lap of a six-game trip, the Lakers had to close it with four games in the last five nights, and admittedly wobbled across the finish line as Dallas rallied to make it close in the final seconds.

O’Neal, as usual, was the stalwart, scoring 25 points, grabbing nine rebounds, and getting practically the entire Dallas roster into foul trouble. He repaid Bradley for the sweatsuit with a postgame thank you, and a fourth-quarter elbow grazing across his nose.

The Lakers, as they did for most of this trip, started slowly Monday, and trailed Dallas by as many as 10 points in the first half as Michael Finley (who scored 23 points) and A.C. Green (13 points and eight rebounds in the first half) outworked the Lakers.

But the Lakers (19-9) got tremendous production out of their power forwards in the second half.

Travis Knight scored 10 points in the third quarter--his best burst in weeks--and Dennis Rodman, in his second game back from a four-game leave, grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds in 32 minutes.

“I’m continually trying to encourage Travis to be aggressive in his play, to look for his shot, to look for his opportunities to score, to post up, to do all these things,” Rambis said.

“I think a lot of times he’s hesitant and defers to the other players to do things, but I want him moving, I want him cutting, I want him picking, I want him posting, I want him doing all that stuff.”

Forward Glen Rice, who scored 17 points, said he can feel the Laker offense, after making so many recent changes, beginning to percolate.

“Things are definitely beginning to come together,” Rice said. “I know I’m doing a lot more cutting because my legs are getting under me.

“I’m ready for the stretch--I want to out there and show everybody what Glen Rice is capable of doing.”

Meanwhile Rodman’s record with the Lakers improved to 11-0.

“It’s like riding a bicycle--just hop on and ride,” Bryant said of playing with Rodman. “We don’t have to make any adjustments at all with him, he just fits right in, doing what he does.”

And now the Lakers are home, actually with a day off today, then they play Phoenix on Wednesday.

It’s over.

“We’re not really satisfied with the trip, but we just have to move on from there,” O’Neal said. “We’ve got four games coming up at home, we’ve got to get another win streak going.”

* NO MAGIC MOMENT: Laker center Shaquille O’Neal did not feel honored to be honored for being part of Orlando’s early franchise history. Page 5

* DREAM GAME: Hakeem Olajuwon scored a season-high 32 points to lead the Houston Rockets past the Sacramento Kings, 110-100. Page 5