Lakers Manage to Grind One Out

By TIM KAWAKAMI

April 5, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PHOENIX —

Take away Kobe Bryant for the whole game, and Shaquille O’Neal for most of the fourth quarter and what’s left of the Lakers?

Run Kevin Johnson at them, run Penny Hardaway, run the whole legion of Phoenix Sun speed-burners and won’t you burn the Lakers up?

Most definitively and dramatically, the Lakers found the answers on Tuesday night, beating the Suns, 84-83, before 19,023 at America West Arena, exactly when you would have to assume the Lakers had met a matchup they could not master.

Bryant was serving a one-game suspension for fighting in Sunday’s victory over New York. O’Neal picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth quarter and couldn’t return until the end.

But Ron Harper, scheduled to go on the injured list until Bryant’s suspension, tallied a near triple-double, Robert Horry had his first double-double of the season and the Lakers held on, surviving when Cliff Robinson’s buzzer-beater bounced long.

‘Wow, what an ugly game we played tonight,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “And won it. I don’t know how.”

Jackson, however, credited O’Neal, who played 43 minutes and scored 32 points, including six-of-nine shooting from the free-throw line.

“This is his game,” Jackson said, “and he showed the reason why he’s the MVP.”

The final period was a proving ground for Laker role players--or a place to fail.

So Rick Fox made two huge baskets, Travis Knight made a couple of big defensive plays, and the Lakers held the Suns eight straight possessions--almost five full minutes--without a point.

By the time O’Neal returned, the Lakers held a 77-72 lead. They had 71-69 lead when he left.

“We were a man short, but we gutted it out and that’s what good teams do,” O’Neal said. “I carried us in the first half, and I think our defense held us in.”

Facing defeat, and a roaring Suns’ crowd, Horry fought his way in for a tip-in of a missed O’Neal shot to put the Lakers ahead, 82-80, grabbed the rebound of Robinson’s miss, then sank a 20-footer with 33.7 seconds left to give the Lakers an 84-80 lead.

In the game, Horry had 11 points and 11 rebounds.

But Robinson made a three-point basket with 22.7 seconds left, and Harper missed both free throws with 20.2 seconds to go, giving Phoenix the ball down by only one.

After he missed, Harper, who had 10 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, slapped the rebound into the air, and the Lakers had their 10th victory in a row, raising their record to 63-12 and reducing their magic number to clinch home-court advantage in the playoffs to a single game. It was also their 29th victory in their last 30 games.

At the end, Jackson said, he was glad it was Harper who shot the free throws, and even though he missed them, Jackson said he wasn’t panicking about the upcoming Suns’ possession.

“Tonight, he was the guy that kept standing up for us most of the time, so it was appropriate that he had to come back and get the ball and the guy who had to get to the line,” Jackson said.

“[After the misses,] they all came back hanging their head, and I said, ‘We’ve still got the lead, they have to score to beat us.’ And they couldn’t do it.”

On the Phoenix possession, after trying to work the ball to the sides--and being denied by active Laker movement--Robinson’s shot was hurried and from 25 feet.

“We played really good defense,” Jackson said. “Good switch, good jump-switch, we read the play well.”

The Lakers, who had 16- and 19-game streaks earlier, became the second team in league history to have three separate double-digit winning streaks, following only the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks.

Johnson almost denied them the opportunity. In his first home game since he retired in 1998, Johnson was marvelous, scoring 14 points and setting up several Suns’ baskets.

O’Neal, who played every minute until early in the fourth, picked up his second, third and fourth fouls, then picked up his fifth with 9:51 left in the game and finally had to come out with the Lakers clinging to a two-point lead.

Predictably, with Bryant out, the Laker offense sputtered early and often and the energy level was decidedly less than usual.

Subtracting O’Neal’s usual solid play (and five-for-seven shooting) in the first quarter, the rest of the Lakers made only two of 17 field-goal tries, which hand-delivered Phoenix a 23-17 first-quarter lead.

But, even though it remained ugly through the rest of the half, the Lakers picked up their game and outscored Phoenix, 23-16, in the second quarter to take a 40-39 halftime lead.

The Lakers stayed in it by keeping the Suns’ shooters at bay--the Suns made only 33 of their 84 shots (39.3%) and sixth man Rodney Rogers was a woeful one of eight, and scored only three points.

“We had to have big plays a number of times during the game,” Jackson said.

“I thought as slow as we started and as lethargic as we looked at the beginning of the game, we just needed an effort to get going. We got back by hook or by crook . . .

“I thought they had every opportunity to bury us in that second quarter, and they couldn’t do it.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LONGEST LAKER WINNING STREAKS THIS SEASON

19 Feb. 4-March 13

16 Dec. 11-Jan. 12

10 March 17-current

7 Nov. 24-Dec. 7

BEST ROAD WIN PERCENTAGE IN L.A. LAKER HISTORY

.816 ‘71-72 (31-7)*

.789 ‘99-00 (30-8)

.718 ‘72-73 (28-11)

.683 ‘86-87 (28-13)*