Lakers Foul Up Plan With Little Trouble

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, much less his rotator cuff, but you might put him at the free-throw line and see what happens.

A night after Portland’s Jermaine O’Neal grabbed Shaquille O’Neal’s shoulder, angering him into getting himself ejected, O’Neal took it out on the hapless Dallas Mavericks, scoring 30 points with 20 rebounds as the Lakers coasted to a 105-97 victory Sunday before 18,068 in Staples Center.

Of course, the Mavericks let O’Neal know they were around too, when Coach Don Nelson had his team foul him every time the Lakers had the ball.

O’Neal, fouled on five consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter, made five of the 10 free throws. This may not sound like much but until then, he had made five of 13.

“Well,” said Laker Coach Phil Jackson, laughing, “you can always count on Nellie to screw a game up, you know that.

“The guy’s on the [NBA] rules committee and he finds more ways to bend the rules than Richard Nixon did as president.”

Nelson has done this before. Once, he had an unsung guard named Bubba Wells foul the Bulls’ Dennis Rodman on every possession. Wells won a measure of immortality by setting an NBA record for the fastest disqualification in league history.

Nelson did it to O’Neal once too, four seasons ago, when he was coaching the Knicks and O’Neal was playing in Orlando. The way Nelson remembers it, it worked and the Knicks beat the favored Magic on the road.

So why wait four years to try it again?

“I’ve never been close enough,” said Nelson laughing. “We’ve always been down 20 points.”

Indeed, the Mavericks had lost 17 games in a row to the Lakers going into Sunday’s game, and 16 in a row to them in L.A. Sure enough, the Lakers ran up a 21-point lead by the fourth quarter, but then they dozed off. The Mavericks crept within 12 points and Nelson dusted off his old trick.

The Lakers would get the ball, O’Neal would be running upcourt and one of the Mavericks would grab him and hold on until the referees blew the whistle.

“The guy shoots 57[%] from the field and 35 from the line,” Nelson said. “It makes sense. . . . That’s the only weakness he has that I’ve seen. As a coach, you have to attack what you feel is a weakness so that’s what we did.

“I have no answer for him on my team. I don’t know how to guard him. We can’t guard him. He dominates us. That’s a strategy I could use and I did.”

Predictably, O’Neal didn’t take it as a compliment.

“I thought it was bull,” O’Neal said. “Nellie always does that.”

Not that it did much good. When O’Neal shot his ninth and 10th free throws in that burst, making both, the Laker lead was up to 13 points. Moments later, Jackson sent A.C. Green in for O’Neal, ending the chess match.

O’Neal, of course, had been in better moods, to start with, after being ejected in Portland.

Shaquille O’Neal insists Jermaine O’Neal, no relation, was attacking his shoulder and vowed revenge.

“I’m going to get him back,” the Laker center said, “I promise you that.”

Aside from O’Neal’s dunks, and Nelson’s strategy, Sunday’s game was as humdrum as they come. The Lakers moved out to an early 13-point lead and the Mavericks cut it to 52-45 at halftime. Then the Lakers had a 20-5 run in the late third and early fourth quarters, moving ahead, 87-66.

Not that anyone seemed that interested in the game but the Lakers put more motion in the triangle offense than they had been and Jackson noted later, he liked the way they played.

“Thank goodness, we have a lot of individual ability,” guard Derek Fisher said. “We’re still finding a way of getting the ball in the basket.

“We got the big fella in the middle, which definitely makes life a lot easier.”

And a lot more interesting too.