It’s Almost Two Easy

Jason Williams can fire up the Nintendo, spend the next three months pretending he’s Kobe Bryant.

Chris Webber can begin working on a new rap album for his Humility Records label, change his name to Whine DMC.

Scot Pollard can make plans to do something, anything, with that hair.

“You want to win Game 2 because it breaks morale,” John Salley was saying. “Guys on the other team start thinking about what they are going to be doing over the summer.”

Start thinking, Sacramento. Those TV groupies in the NBA office can stretch this first-round series until Memorial Day and your season has still expired, finished Thursday night during the Lakers’ 113-89 victory at the rowdy (OK, for us) Staples Center.

The win gives the Lakers a two-games-to-none lead in the best-of-five series, meaning they still have to win one out of the next three to advance to the second round. But let’s be serious.

The Kings will be lucky to win another quarter, much less a game, even with the next two being played up north at that rollicking monument to cheap gas.

“We’re a much better team at Arco Arena,” Vlade Divac said hopefully.

They can be better shooters, better passers, better rebounders, better defenders, even better sports.

Yet they still won’t win the series because, as the Lakers proved Thursday for a second consecutive game, the Kings will not be better workers.

It’s too late for that. It’s too late to decide to make the extra pass, set the extra pick, defend your man for the extra second.

The Kings know it, and, more important, the Lakers know it.

Because the Lakers have been there. For much of the last three disappointing postseasons, they were the Kings.

Talented but temperamental, wondrous one moment, wild the next.

Not anymore. With Phil Jackson watching calmly while thousands around him bounced in continued amazement that they are still playing this way in late April, the Lakers essentially finished this series with a very loud period.

They will fly at every loose ball. Period.

They will lunge for every rebound. Period.

They will cut and screen and pass no matter how much they all want to fly. Period.

“We don’t always get to all those loose balls and things,” Glen Rice said afterward. “But tonight, we did. We did a lot of things right. We have to remember that when we go up there.”

Your favorite sequence of jaw-dropping plays Thursday in a game full of them?

Some will say it was late in the second quarter, when Kobe Bryant made a steal. Then juked two players for a reverse layup. Then ran ahead on the ensuing possession and nailed a one-on-several rainbow three-point shot.

But some will remember that Bryant has put that same pretty wallpaper on some pretty bad playoff losses in the past.

And they might remember something different.

Like midway through the first quarter, when Shaquille O’Neal wrestled an offensive rebound out of Kings hands and passed it to Bryant, who missed a short jump shot.

Then A.C. Green stole another rebound and took a jump shot. He missed, but then O’Neal yanked away the third rebound of the sequence and slammed it while being fouled.

These are the sorts of things that led old men to later dance without shame to a timeout song that echoed, “These are the good times!”

For the Kings’ part, many of their offensive sequences could be put into three words.

Drive. Shoot. Cry for a foul.

Defensively, it was only a tad different.

Guard. Get beat. Cry that you were fouled.

This changed during one memorable moment late in the third quarter when Bryant found himself on a one-on-one break against Jason Williams.

Williams, knowing he was about to left as naked as his head, simply hugged Bryant before he reached the lane.

The fans booed. Williams’ stare was as vacant as his hyped game.

Moments later, the two were in the same situation, only Bryant was too quick for a hug, dancing around Williams for a layup while being fouled.

One fan was so excited, he purposely dumped popcorn on the head of the boy in front of him, and it was shown on the video scoreboard, and everyone cheered, and why not?

This was the game, coming after three days of practice more physical than any since training camp, that Phil Jackson intimated would show if the Lakers were indeed serious about this second season.

“It’s a see-saw battle. . . . between what I want them to become, and what they’re willing to settle for,” Jackson said.

We now know a first-round embarrassment against what could have been a scary team apparently is not in the plans.

“We’re still finding ourselves,” Jackson also said. “We’re still learning to believe in each other and trust each other. This will determine how far we can go in the playoffs.”

In other words, “We have to realize we can’t dump it into Shaq every game and he’s going to get 40.”

The Lakers also took care of this Thursday, proving quickly that they got the message after O’Neal went to the bench with two fouls late in the first quarter.

When he returned early in the fourth quarter, they still led by 10.

In fact, after inducing one of the Kings into becoming a blathering “idiot” in the first game--O’Neal’s words, not mine--he simply outhustled them all in the second game. He grabbed as many rebounds (19) as any two Kings combined.

Bryant took care of most of the shooting with 32 points. Green and Robert Horry took care of most of the defense on Webber, who made only eight of 28 shots.

And Phil Jackson, as usual, took care of throwing a big bucket of cold water on all of it.

“Our energy tonight was mystifying,” he said. “At times we had it. But at times . . .”

Rice smiled. “Phil always wants to keep us on our toes,” he said.

No need. They’re there.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.