Lakers Blast Out of a Hole

By TIM KAWAKAMI

Jan. 9, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SEATTLE —

It happened so fast, they probably will have to replay it in slow motion to capture the rapture.

A giant deficit. A tired and stumbling team. An inspired, explosive opponent. A long Laker winning streak, about to end.

Then, KA-POW!

And thud.

Not one punch, but scores of them, a deluge, and before the Seattle SuperSonics could catch a breath, a break or maybe even say a prayer, the Lakers turned assumed defeat into a roaring, 110-100 come-from-way-behind victory on Saturday before 17,072 at KeyArena.

“Yeah,” said Coach Phil Jackson, looking a little surprised himself, “it was amazing.”

It was also the Lakers’ 14th consecutive victory, coming 24 hours after they rallied from 13 down in the fourth quarter to beat the Charlotte Hornets at Staples Center.

But this one came in a hostile environment, against a Seattle team playing at a high peak--led by former Laker Ruben Patterson’s battering-ram energy--from farther back and at a pace that at times defied belief.

Seattle blinked, and the lead was 19, then 11, then five, then . . . gone.

“If we can put 48 minutes together like we had that second half,” said Glen Rice, who scored 20 of his 24 points in the second half, including an 11-point burst over a few minutes in the third quarter, “I don’t think there’s a team in the league that can come out and even compete with us.”

The Lakers (29-5) were inconsistent during the first half, spotting Seattle a 19-point lead with 10:27 left in the third quarter.

“We were thinking that it was going to be a long night,” Rice said. “If we didn’t buckle down and pick it up on the defensive end and also get into our offense, we were going to mess around and get embarrassed.”

Patterson had ripped them until that point for 19 points and nine rebounds, driving at will.

“They were embarrassed that first half, and confused,” Jackson said of his team, which gave up a season-worst 66 points to Seattle after two quarters.

“And they went into the locker room and regrouped and thought about what we’d done, we’d just given so much penetration, they just ran the ball right up our faces basically, the first half.”

Said Shaquille O’Neal, who was limited by foul trouble but contributed 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists: “Ruben was having a field day in the first half.

“He was playing like an all-star. We just said we needed to rebound and we need to take better shots.”

Patterson had only two points and one rebound in the second half.

That’s when something clicked, and Kobe Bryant (who rebounded from his poor shooting night Friday to make his first five three-pointers and score 31 points), Rice and Derek Fisher started making everything, the defense finally prevented Patterson and Gary Payton easy access into the lane, and by the 3:37 mark in the quarter, the score was tied, 72-72.

It was 6:50 tightly packed with so much energy, the Lakers spent most of the fourth quarter with wide smiles and exchanging goofy grins.

Fisher even checked with press row, to jokingly see if anybody had already written their end-of-streak stories.

During that game-tying span, the Lakers outscored the shocked SuperSonics, 21-2.

“Glen came out of nowhere and started hitting shots,” O’Neal said. “Glen woke up, then I got couple.”

And once they tied it, the Lakers just kept going, outscoring Seattle, 34-12, in the third quarter, and the lead was 20 points with 4:05 left in the game, and the rest was garbage time, incredibly.

The 19-point deficit was the largest the Lakers have overcome to win this season--the previous high was 13 against Boston last month and Charlotte on Friday.

“It feels great, man, it’s a great feeling,” said Rice, who scored 15 points in the third quarter.

“Any time we can get it going like we got it going in that second half, that makes us an explosive team, an exciting team. I’ll tell you, we’re just having a lot of fun.”

Said Jackson, who switched some defensive strategies at halftime: “I told them, ‘You know, it’s not going to be made up in five minutes, not going to be made up in two minutes . . . ‘

“I didn’t think they’d be able to make it up as quickly as they did.”

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The Streak

The Lakers improved their winning streak to 14:

at Vancouver: 106-94

Detroit: 101-93

Clippers: 95-68

at Atlanta: 95-88

at Minnesota: 97-88

at Toronto: 94-88

at Boston: 99-90

San Antonio: 99-93