Lakers Missing Portion of Rice

Now you see him, now you don’t . . .

Glen Rice was a riddle wrapped in an enigma covered up by several Denver Nuggets on Thursday, his jumper vanished from sight and his offensive output all but wiped from the stat sheet.

Of course, Rice wasn’t the only Laker whose presence was barely felt during the team’s sluggish 93-82 loss to Denver before 15,219.

In the face of Denver’s energy and speed, other than Shaquille O’Neal, who scored a season-high 36 points (despite making only two of 14 free-throw tries), and Derek Fisher, who scored 15 points and had nine assists, no Laker did much of consequence, offensively or defensively.

But Rice--who is being counted on for additional scoring in the absence of Kobe Bryant but who made only one of his eight shots and scored four points--drew most of Coach Phil Jackson’s ire during the game, and some of it afterward too.

“[He] just doesn’t move to the basketball, just doesn’t seem to be able to play without the ball,” Jackson said of his forward. “They overplayed him, and he couldn’t get to the basketball, even to catch it.

“And had it taken away from him when he did catch it a couple times.”

In a common strategy against the triangle offense, the Nuggets didn’t double-team O’Neal, preferring to do everything they could to deny the easy entry pass to the wings that often triggers the triangle offense.

By doing that, and basically erasing Rice from the game, the big unanswered question of the Laker season--Can Rice flourish in an offense that is not focused singularly on getting him open shots?--popped up loud and clear.

Jackson said that there was a simple method for Rice to get open.

“Just reverse, just play without the ball,” Jackson said. “That’s just plain basketball, that’s what it is. That’s what we teach.

“He’s having a hard time playing without the ball in the course of the game. And we don’t provide picks as far guys just popping off [being] shooters.”

Instead, Rice was not very active when the ball was not in his hands, almost never touched the ball in shooting situations, turned the ball over three times and looked generally uneasy and disconnected from the rest of the offense.

Did Rice, who also had adjustment problems in last season’s inside-out O’Neal-dominated offense, agree with Jackson’s point that all he had to do was move without the ball?

“I don’t see that,” Rice said calmly. “It’s a lot of movement. I just think that you’ve just got to be more aware of what I’m doing out there.

“In some cases, when we go stretches when you realize that I really haven’t been involved, you’ve got to get me involved. If I get into a rhythm, it’s going to help.

“Tonight, I let myself get frustrated out there. You can’t afford to do that.”

Rice said he was trying to move to open spaces.

“I think the thing we’ve got to do, when you have people denying the wings like they are, you’ve got to have a lot better motion offense,” he said. “You’ve got to reverse the ball a lot. And we didn’t do that a lot.”

The Lakers lost for only the third time in 10 games, but for the first time in a game that O’Neal was around to finish.

The Nuggets, who were led by Ron Mercer’s 24 points, Nick Van Exel’s 23 points and eight assists and Antonio McDyess’ 15 points and 13 rebounds, raised their record to 3-5.

Jackson said he thought his team looked slow to the ball the whole game, but really noticed a change when Rick Fox was whistled for a flagrant foul on James Posey with 7:16 left in the third quarter.

At the time, the Lakers led, 51-48. But after that play, O’Neal quickly picked up his third and fourth fouls, Denver went on an 8-0 run, and the Lakers never had the lead again.

“We had a chance to put them away, but we missed a couple easy shots and they just played harder than we did,” said O’Neal, who made 17 of his 27 field-goal tries and had eight rebounds and a season-high six assists.

“You know, we had an awful practice yesterday and it probably just carried over to today. Maybe just one of those days. . . .

“They just played harder. We’re not going to make any excuses.”