Lakers Need to Bolster Bench

It’s a case study now, a university-style introductory class in the ways of frustrate-the-giant basketball.

If it were in a classroom, you’d call it: Basketball 101, Lakers 81.

In Monday’s Game 1 of the second-round series against the Spurs, an 87-81 San Antonio victory here, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Will Perdue and other Spurs with large bodies leaped in front of the diesel, doing everything they could to distract and derail the Lakers’ dominant post presence.

So on Tuesday, the Lakers regrouped, examined their options, and logically concluded that:

* Starting with Game 2 tonight at the Alamodome, they will not only need more from Shaquille O’Neal, who was harried into six-for-19 shooting and only 21 points.

* They will also need more than O’Neal.

O’Neal found the shooting lanes obstructed by long arms and large shoulders. But the bumping and harassment by the tall trees obscured his passing lanes too, exasperating him and prompting him to clamor for more foul calls.

“Very few times in the past have I seen him get that frustrated,” said Laker forward Rick Fox, a key bench scorer who missed all five of his shots in Game 1.

“But it happened. The focus of the opponent is to obviously wait for him to put the ball down on the floor and swarm him with three or four guys and be as physical as possible. . . . We have to find a way to obviously get better looks.”

When O’Neal did get the ball out, the shooter usually misfired as the Lakers shot only 38%.

With Kobe Bryant’s usual electrifying ballet-in-the-lane game erased by San Antonio’s shot blockers, with Glen Rice cooling off after a three-for-four shooting start, and especially with the Laker bench making only one of 12 shots, San Antonio performed the complete defensive trick.

Against such a well-constructed defensive team, it’s hard to imagine Bryant or Rice, the Lakers’ two other offensive mainstays, getting many easy shots.

What the Lakers need now is an X-factor performance, something like the 27-point game Indiana got from sixth man Jalen Rose in its Game 1 victory over Philadelphia. Something like the key baskets Utah got from reserve swingman Shandon Anderson in Games 4 and 5 against Sacramento. Something like Laker teams of yesteryear got from Michael Cooper or Bob McAdoo.

Instead, the Lakers got two points--and five rebounds--from their bench, whereas San Antonio got 17 points and 15 rebounds.

“You can believe we’re aware of it,” said backup point guard Derek Harper, who delivered 13 points in the Game 4 first-round clincher over Houston but was scoreless Monday and was asked repeatedly about the lack of bench production Tuesday.

“I think it’s important, obviously,” he said. “It showed in Game 4. [But] I just think that regardless of what the situation is, you have to play your game. And you can’t force your game. . . .

“Obviously, I don’t think we can afford to get outscored by their bench, 17-2, and I don’t think that we will every night in this series.”

Against the Rockets in the first round, Harper pointed out, Derek Fisher’s outside shooting was the X-factor that loosened up Houston’s defense, and allowed O’Neal to flourish on his way to averaging 29.5 points.

“That’s what we did in Houston,” Harper said. “I think that’s what freed him up. They were afraid of Fish knocking down threes because he consistently did it in the first two games. Glen was hot, Kobe was hitting from the outside, we were all knocking down outside shots, until they had to almost play [O’Neal] with 1 1/2 people, and that’s impossible to do.”

Coach Kurt Rambis said the point is to move the ball with a better rhythm, and keep the Spur defense from knowing exactly when and where O’Neal would be getting the ball.

And maybe, he said, they should go to some other shooters as the first option, instead of dumping it in every time down the floor.

“We have to do a much better job at not being predictable,” Rambis said. “We’ve played so well whenever we weren’t predictable, even in yesterday’s game.

“But any time that we locked in and . . . you know, sent up a red flag [that tells the defense], ‘This is what we’re running,’ they knew exactly how they were going to double-team and what they were going to do.”

In the playoffs, Rambis said, any kind of bright performance--scoring, rebounding, defense, passing--from a non-superstar or role player is a bonus.

“Well, it definitely helps, yeah,” Rambis said. “But everybody needs to step it up. We want big performances and special performances out of two or three guys every night.

“A big example for them is Perdue. He came in and did a real good job for them [getting nine rebounds]. We need somebody doing that.”

Especially when O’Neal is the focus of everything San Antonio is doing defensively.

Said backup forward Robert Horry, “We just have to not put as much pressure on him. We’ve got other guys who can post up. Glen showed that the last game.

“We’ve got to do other things sometimes to get [O’Neal] a rest. Because they’re really going to try to beat him. . . . They’ve got four big strong guys who can beat him up.

“We’ve got to put him on the other side, let him get some rest sometimes, post up Glen or Kobe or Rick, do some other things.”

According to Fox, the team’s second-unit players understand that they have to produce in the playoffs.

“Yeah, I think we definitely feel, as supporting players, that we’d like to contribute more in some fashion in the next game,” he said.

“I don’t think we were as fluid as we would’ve liked to have been as a unit. We didn’t do the things we’ve done in the past. . . .

“I didn’t get shots I wanted. But I kind of told myself in the second half to at least be aggressive, try to be a difference. I took a couple of shots that at first I thought were going to be good looks and turned out not to be. . . .

“I didn’t want to just stand out there and be nonexistent for the second half.”

* RANDY HARVEY: San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich has come a long way from his days at Pomona-Pitzer. Page 2

* SERIES REPORT: PAGE 4