Lakers Triangulate a Victory Over Jazz

The voltage was high, if the shooting percentages were not.

The game sizzled, if sometimes the triangle was barely visible and the Utah Jazz looked gimpy and gray.

It was Shaquille O’Neal vs. Karl Malone, Phil Jackson against the Utah Jazz, late, late into the night, wandering into a passionate stretch run, and who cared if it was only Game 1 of an 82-game regular season, not Game 6 of the NBA finals?

In a dramatic, emphatic season-opening slugfest, Lakers found several heroes, figured out some late answers, and fought their way to a 91-84 victory before 19,911 at the Delta Center on Tuesday night.

One and oh, with an exclamation point.

Is this how the Jackson era is going to be, every night?

O’Neal and Rice, who finished with 28 points, made several huge baskets in the final minutes, and overall, the Lakers played with an intensity on defense that they had rarely shown over the past several seasons.

Down the stretch, it was John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek and Malone who struggled and bobbled the ball and argued with the referees, and the Lakers who were relatively calm and surprisingly efficient.

It was a game with postseason emotion, and preseason rhythms.

After leading for most of the game, the Lakers surrendered the lead to the Jazz early in the fourth quarter, and the rest of the way was all give and take.

Then, with 42.2 seconds left, Derek Fisher’s three-point basket gave the Lakers a 87-82 lead.

But after Stockton’s quick jumper cut the lead to only three, O’Neal missed two free throws to give Utah a last chance with 17.1 seconds left.

With the Delta Center crowd thundering, Pete Chilcutt missed an open three-pointer at the top of the key, and the game belonged to the Lakers.

“Before the game, I told Glen I was going to need about 27 from him, and I was going to score 25, 27 myself,” said O’Neal, who finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds after getting into early foul trouble.

“Glen stepped up.”

Rice, in fact, made five of his six three-point attempts, and finished with 28 points, which is a long way from his last exhibition performance--a dreadful 0-for-10 outing that raised questions about his adaptation to the triangle offense.

Jackson said the coaches were looking for Rice to help shoulder the offensive load with Kobe Bryant injured.

“This is the first time he’s really stepped out and scored in this offense,” Jackson said. “We kind of had a focus on it before the game, and he picked it up.

“That’s the way great players play, they find a way.”

Jackson, however, hardly exulted about the victory, choosing to point out the bumbling as well as the high points of the moment.

“I’m pleased about the way we performed down the stretch,” Jackson said. “I thought we performed OK down the stretch.

“Both teams looked like they were kind of stumbling around out there.”

O’Neal, Jackson noted, had a chance to put the game away with the two late free throws. The Lakers made several key plays down the stretch to O’Neal, and then back out, when the defense collapsed on him.

“That was important,” Jackson said. “I liked that. I didn’t like the fact Shaq had a couple free throws, that one was in, it looked good, and he crunched the next one. But I did like the fact that we went back to him and got the penetration, which is what we wanted.”

The last time Jackson was in this arena, Michael Jordan’s jumper over Bryon Russell sealed the victory and the last of the Chicago Bulls’ six NBA titles.

On Tuesday night, it was John Salley chipping in a handful of key minutes, Fisher harrying Stockton and Rice putting his body between the Jazz and the basket.

Through three-plus scrambling quarters, the Lakers nudged and nibbled, coaxed and coerced themselves to the lead.

But, finally, Utah went on an 8-0 run early in the fourth to pull ahead, 67-66, on a jumper with 8:25 left by Hornacek, who finished with a team-high 23 points.

O’Neal had 15 points and eight rebounds in the first half, but picked up his second and third fouls in quick succession in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the Jazz limped along, making only 13 of its 36 shots (36.1%) in the half and looking uncomfortable most of the way.

It was a surprising half of defense for a Laker team that has not had a history of success against Utah, but perhaps not for Jackson, whose Bulls were very tough on Utah in past playoffs.

“Well, we know how to do it,” Jackson said before the game. “We actually held this team to what, 62 points, in a playoff game one afternoon, which is phenomenal in itself because they’re such great players.

“But we know how to defend them as a coaching staff. Getting that across to our personnel is different.”

Malone, guarded by A.C. Green for most of the time, made only a single basket in the first half and finished with 14 points. And Salley came off the bench with some key production--four points, three rebounds and a blocked shot.

“Our problem is not having a power forward right now that’s young enough and strong enough to run with Karl and having to throw A.C. out there in a position where if he’s in foul trouble, the next step is to go with centers and small forwards,” Jackson said.

“So we’re going to have our trouble defending him just with matchups.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

HIGH SCORERS

28: Rice, Lakers

23: O’Neal, Lakers; Hornacek, Jazz

*

HIGH REBOUNDERS

13: O’Neal, Lakers

7: Harper, Lakers; Ostertag, Jazz

*

FREE THROWS

O’Neal, 5 of 11; (45.4%)

*

TONIGHT’S HOME OPENER

Vancouver vs. Lakers,

Staples Center,

7:30 p.m.,

Fox Sports West