Laid-Back Lakers Do Just Enough

They ran around, chucked up goofy shots, threw down fun dunks, played defense every now and then, and generally played this like an aimless Great Western Forum Summer League game Monday night.

No Laker even got mad enough to fight, or got the crowd motivated or seemed particularly to care that much at all.

A startling statistic: Shaquille O’Neal had a career-low one rebound in his 34-plus minutes of action, only one more than Jack Nicholson.

O’Neal’s previous career low was three. Nicholson’s career low was not available.

Maybe Sunday’s 12-round body-punching brawl against the New York Knicks took a little more out of the Lakers than anybody could have guessed.

Monday, the Lakers got casual, got outworked, and only with a strong late push got a 116-98 split-decision victory over the woeful Vancouver Grizzlies before 17,312 at the Forum.

Passionate, precision, playoff-level basketball? Not quite.

It took a relentless 17-rebound performance by Dennis Rodman--nine in the third quarter alone, five on the offensive side--and some hot shooting by Kobe Bryant and Glen Rice to shake loose the Grizzlies, who last month beat the Lakers in Del Harris’ final game as coach.

But O’Neal acknowledged that he was not exactly able to play at full speed after the fight-night festivities Sunday.

“I was about two steps slow today,” O’Neal said. “But the other guys played well--Dennis played well, guys shot well, so we did OK. It was just one of those games . . .”

O’Neal chastised the statistician with a smile when he was told he was given only one rebound: “I had more than one rebound. I had about three, man.”

Vancouver was far from perfect--the Grizzlies had the will but not the offensive flow to avoid three shot-clock violations and more than 20 turnovers.

For a while early in the third quarter, the Lakers (21-11) seemed to snap out of the groggy mood in a rush of Bryant open-court scoring, giving the Lakers an 11-point lead.

Bryant finished with 20 points, but Vancouver (5-24), led by Shareef Abdur-Rahim (who ended up with 21 points and seven assists), came right back to close it to 60-57 on a wave of second-chance baskets and effort points.

“You had a big game, an emotional game, and it was physical, and it’s just hard to have the same energy again,” Laker Coach Kurt Rambis said.

“It’s just a natural phenomenon, it’s hard to avoid. I could tell the guys were trying to push through it, and do the right thing, and for the most part, we did a lot of good things.”

Again to open the fourth, the Lakers edged into a double-digit lead on a couple of long jumpers by Rice (who finished with 24 points) and inventive drives to the basket by Rick Fox (who finished with 17).

And again, Vancouver, only 1-12 on the road this season, scrapped its way back into view with offensive rebounds and hard slashes to the basket by Felipe Lopez and Abdur-Rahim.

It wasn’t until Rice swished a three-point basket with five minutes left to play, giving the Lakers a 100-84 lead, that this game was put to bed.

Derek Harper said that the team’s improved defensive teamwork--despite all the offensive rebounds, Vancouver shot only 47.6% in the game--helped the Lakers get through this rough spot.

“It’s even more important when the energy isn’t there,” Harper said. “You have to find a way to grind out a game like this, and you do that with defense . . .

“After an emotional game like we had, it was tough tonight. But all in all, I think we handled it well. We got up 10, they would come at us, and we pulled away in the end.”

O’Neal did have a game-high 26 points, and made six of his seven free throws.

Once again, the Lakers got a necessary jolt of energy and cohesive play out of second-unit players Fox, Robert Horry and Derek Fisher, who helped turn a tie score into a 41-34 lead midway through the second quarter.

“Robert does good things mixing things up defensively--he’s a good a trapper, he’s a good rotate guy,” Rambis said before the game.

“Rick has been coming in and playing very well. He’s gotten us some real quick points from his position. Fish brings us defensive tenacity with that unit . . .

“I have them run a little bit different stuff to better suit their talents. They can’t rely on Shaq to bail them out, so they have to help each other in order to get shots.”

DENVER: 100

CLIPPERS: 88

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