Lakers Foul Up Webber, Kings

Sacramento’s impetuous, unpredictable, explosive-and-implosive Kings were still atop the bronc deep into Sunday afternoon, down 10 points late in the third quarter at Staples Center, a considerable deficit given the opponent but barely enough to quicken a pulse given the past. Like they have already forgotten getting rocked by Utah by 30 points in the opening playoff game a year earlier and then coming all the way back to overtime of a deciding Game 5 on the road before falling?

So the Lakers were in control. So what.

And then:

So long.

It took 40.5 seconds. Chris Webber got a technical and his fifth foul, leading to his immediate exit. The rest of the Kings weren’t far behind, losing whatever grip existed and then the game, 117-107.

Sacramento may have scraped back within six points with 4 1/2 minutes left in the game, but the Kings were running on fumes without Webber, not merely their leading scorer, but at the position, power forward, where the Lakers were most exploitable. Instead, with the game on the line, he was on the hook.

“You want teams to get frustrated, you want teams to get out of character,” Laker Glen Rice said. “And that’s what they did a little tonight.”

Not that things were light and breezy before--the Kings were already down 11 in the second quarter and then trailed by 12 with 7:21 remaining in the third--but things went bad for good about six minutes later. It was 86-76 when Webber, having already made 11 of 16 shots for 28 points, fought for post position near the lane and tangled with Robert Horry.

Webber’s right arm was extended. Horry’s head was there.

Offensive foul. Not only that, No. 5 for Webber, with 1:14 left in the quarter.

“It’s the same way with L.A. every time ‘cause Horry flops a lot,” Webber said. “If you don’t call one charge on Shaq, how can you call a charge on me? I can’t make any apologies for playing physical with Horry. That’s their plan, to flop and get sympathy on their side.”

“I don’t flop,” Horry responded. “I know the refs are not going to give me anything compared to him. He’s an All-Star. I’m a bum.”

Webber was also just beginning to find trouble. So incensed at the call, he screamed at the referee who whistled the offensive foul, Mike Callahan, and gestured so wildly with his arms that the technical that came seconds later was a foregone conclusion.

Rice sank that free throw, making it 87-76. And, with the possession the Lakers got from the Sacramento turnover, Shaquille O’Neal made a six-foot hook over Scot Pollard. Suddenly, the Lakers were up by 13.

When O’Neal turned into the lane and again worked over Pollard, this time making one from about five feet, the lead was 91-76. From 10 ahead with 1:14 remaining to 15 ahead with 33.5 seconds showing in the third quarter, with Webber on ice and the other starting big man, Vlade Divac, en route to two-for-14 shooting and four rebounds in 35 minutes. The Kings were barely heard from again.

“It was definitely tough on us,” said Lawrence Funderburke, one of the King forwards given the unenviable task of stepping in. “Webber is a guy we run a lot of our offense through. Once he went out, a lot of our camaraderie and chemistry went out too. It was like, what are we to do?

“He’s our primary focus on offense. Everyone’s looking around and wondering who is going to step up. Not only who’s going to score, but who’s going to draw the defense inside and rebound. That’s something we can’t really prepare for. That’s not something we could have foreseen coming.”

Someone asked Webber if he should have done a better job of keeping his composure.

“Great plan,” he said. “Maybe. Or maybe I would have kept my composure and we would still have lost.”

A very good possibility, to be sure. What was for certain was that Webber’s departure immediately preceded a Laker run, and that he returned for a final push with 6:55 to play in the fourth and lasted all of two seconds before getting No. 6. That was also an offensive foul, for charging over Derek Fisher.