Jackson Becomes Third Corner of Missing Triangle

It was only appropriate that John Salley started in Shaquille O’Neal’s place Friday night against Houston, because right now the Lakers are a lot more Spider than they are Shaq Fu.

This isn’t a very exciting team, and not very pretty to watch right now.

Even with a record that ranked among the league’s best before Friday’s 97-81 loss to Houston, they had yet to establish themselves as a threat.

There’s nothing glamorous about a lineup that includes Tyronn Lue, Brian Shaw, A.C. Green, Rick Fox and Travis Knight. That’s what the Lakers had on the floor in the second quarter. And that’s the type of team they are right now.

Guys like Vince Carter, (gulp) Eddie Jones and even Rocket rookie Steve Francis get the air time on “SportsCenter.”

The Lakers are more fit for C-SPAN.

Yet we keep watching, waiting to learn something.

Two weeks into the season, we already know that Portland is scary, that Miami has heeded Pat Riley’s off-season challenge to his players, that Chicago and Golden State are horrendous and Philadelphia is nothing more than Allen Iverson.

We know very little about the Lakers.

With Kobe Bryant expected to be out another couple of weeks with that hand injury, we still don’t know how he will fit into their offense.

We don’t know much about their 5-2 record because they haven’t beaten anyone of consequence and they didn’t look very good at Portland, when the Trail Blazers were missing Rasheed Wallace and Brian Grant.

So we don’t know how they match up with the best teams when they’re at their best.

The suspensions of Shaq and Charles Barkley after their Wednesday night smackdown took the relevance away from Friday night’s game. It wasn’t a true test. A victory wouldn’t have mattered, a loss wouldn’t have mattered.

What little clues there are rest in the statistics. There, it’s evident the Lakers are taking the steps to make the transformation from pretty boys to mop-up crew. You half expect them to come out of the locker room after the game and help change Staples Center from a basketball court to a hockey rink.

The Lakers are doing the things that don’t look nice. Except (and this is a major except) for making free throws, they’re doing the things that lead to victories in the playoffs.

The Lakers are playing defense. They’re sixth in the league in opponents’ scoring, and even with the new offense-friendly rules they only gave up 100 points once in the first seven games.

They’re protecting the ball, and are sixth in the league in turnovers. They’re tied for seventh in rebounds.

And they’re sixth in the league in field-goal percentage.

“I think we’ve got a team that can shoot the ball a little bit, we’ve got a team that has some defensive capabilities,” Coach Phil Jackson said. Then he used his favorite word, rhythm. Phil Jackson talks about rhythm more than a drum teacher.

“I think that’s the key to this team, is to find a rhythm and how they’ve got to play the game,” Jackson said. “To be honest with you, the offense that we run takes some rhythm and timing and we just didn’t have that tonight.”

There’s nothing rhythmic about shooting 34%, the way they did Friday.

Still, if you would have told the Lakers before the season that they would start off 5-2 and split road games at Utah and Portland and split two meetings with the Rockets they would have accepted it.

If you would have told them one of the losses would come when O’Neal didn’t finish a game and another came when he didn’t even start, it would sound even better.

We do know they can’t continue to win if Shaq continues to lead the league in ejections and missed free throws.

They also won’t go deep into the playoffs with Salley starting at center. He provided four points and five rebounds in 19 minutes.

He did provide a dose of comic relief. Not just when he went out for the opening tip but before the game, when he struggled to recall exactly how long it had been since he started.

“I don’t remember the last time,” Salley said. “I think it was in Toronto. I started in ’95.”

“I thought I was going to come in and take the starting position away from Shaquille,” Salley said.

Then, for the benefit of the newspaper readers, he added: “I smiled, OK? Ha ha ha.

“I knew Shaquille’s spot was secure. I didn’t want to come in here and just be a guy at the end of the bench, you know, walking around, waving a towel.

“I wanted to play. And that’s why I came in shape, that’s why I did what I did in training camp, that’s why I kept focus. So I’m supposed to play.”

We can be sure exactly what’s supposed to happen for the Lakers this year. Maybe we ought to expect more Salley, more uninspiring nights before the true character of this team emerges.

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