Lakers Regain Their Edge

As usual, the action on the court only told a fraction of the Lakers’ story. At least this time the rest of the story was about basketball, not dissension and discord.

Wednesday night, the out-of-town scores had as much to do with the Laker postseason as the Laker game against the Portland Trail Blazers did.

So while the Lakers won the right to home-court advantage in their first-round series against the Houston Rockets and they can feel free to pronounce themselves playoff ready after their 119-91 thrashing of Portland, the real news is that San Antonio beat Golden State.

That means the Spurs are seeded No. 1 in the Western Conference. If the Lakers advance to the second round (which looks much more likely than it did a couple of weeks ago) they’ll probably face the Spurs (which is much more appealing than facing the Utah Jazz).

That’s what will be remembered, long after the Forum nets have recovered from the 40-point scorching Glen Rice put them through Wednesday. In one night the Lakers went from the possibility of opening the playoffs on the road to facing the best path to the conference finals.

The Lakers weren’t going to beat Utah before they changed the composition of their team with the trade of Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell for Rice, and they aren’t going to beat them now.

However, even though the Spurs punked the Lakers when they went down to San Antonio on April 24, the Lakers don’t have to be afraid of them. O’Neal always dominates Robinson, the Spurs don’t have the type of precision offense Utah runs that drives the Lakers nuts and they don’t have the experience Utah gained from two consecutive trips to the NBA finals.

Those sure beat the usual subplots around the Forum.

The roar of the sellout crowd at the Forum muted those persistent rumblings coming out of the locker room--that Shaquille O’Neal might exercise his option and head elsewhere, that Rice was upset with his role in the offense, that Shaq and Kobe Bryant can’t coexist--for at least one night.

They’re running the offense through Shaq again, which makes Shaq happy.

Rice is getting shots--20 Wednesday night and 15 Monday night--which should make him happy.

Bryant is finding ways to let others get involved, which should make the rest of the team happy.

The Lakers don’t need to proclaim their eternal love for one another; they only need to set aside their differences for a couple of hours every night when it’s time to play ball.

Maybe they’re getting mature enough to do that. The biggest smile of the night could be found on Bryant’s face, even though he took only five shots. Bryant was enjoying the Glen Rice Show as much as anyone else.

Rice made six of six three-pointers to fuel the Lakers’ 39-point explosion in the third quarter. He sure provided a better way to remember the last regular-season game at the Forum than the toilet that backed up and flooded the hallway.

Finally, Rice did what he was brought here to do. If Rice keeps going like this, Jerry West might even find it safe to come back for games again. (Who has been away from the Forum scene longer, West or Dancin’ Barry?).

The ease of the Laker victory over this higher-seeded team is a little deceiving. Even though Portland ranked among the league’s elite for the season, the Trail Blazers had only one road victory over a team that finished the season with a winning record.

But put this game together with the previous three Laker games in which they’ve shown signs of effort on defense and signs of cohesion on offense and they have to be favored against the Rockets.

When handicapping the playoffs, it’s important to think in terms of what teams are capable of doing.

That’s why it’s never wise to pick Miami. Pat Riley already extracts the maximum effort from the Heat on every night, and when every other team shifts it up a gear for the playoffs the Heat is already in fourth, forced to watch everyone blow by. That’s why it is smart to pick Utah. Forget whatever struggles the Jazz might have had down the stretch of the season. Some of it was the Jazz players clicking on the cruise control, biding their time till the postseason. Part of it was fatigue.

It’s back to normal now. The playoff format favors older teams like Utah. The games are spaced out, with plenty of time to rest. There will be, at most, one set of back-to-back games, and that’s usually only for teams that NBC loves (which means get ready, Lakers, if you make it to the second round).

Sometimes you want to face a team that has been playing as well as the Spurs have for the past two months, because it’s impossible to sustain that level forever. Remember how dominant the Trail Blazers were toward the end of the 1990-91 season and how the Lakers took them out in the conference finals?

Talking conference finals before the playoffs even started might sound a little premature, but it has been a while since the Laker future looked this good.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.