Going Away From O’Neal Finally Pays

Midway through the third period during Sunday’s Game 7 victory over Portland, Coach Phil Jackson called time out to tell his players to stop going to their near-unanimous most valuable player.

Shaquille O’Neal at that point had only two field goals, was about to go the entire third quarter without a field goal, and the Portland defense was surrounding him with four players.

“What we basically told the team is that every time we forced the ball into him, we were creating turnovers either for Shaq or for us,” Jackson said.

“Complete the effort, continue the action, make them have to play defense and then look for him if he’s available and we found that and he got loose a little bit in that fourth quarter . . .

“The whole team was standing in the lane around Shaq, we kick the ball around the perimeter and guys were trying to penetrate when shots were there.”

O’Neal stayed in the game, ordered his teammates to step up, and scored nine points in the fourth quarter when the defense opened up.

“I think this series really took a toll on him, really wore on him as it went along, but he never hung his head,” guard Brian Shaw said.

“And when you have a leader like that, everybody’s watching him, to see his body language. And, despite the fact that things weren’t maybe going the way he wanted them to, he still kept his wits about him.”

*

The Trail Blazers were highly effective with one basic play through the first three quarters, though it took several timeouts for the Lakers to figure out how to stop it.

“We were just befuddled by high-screen rolls and Portland’s a team that picks a scab until it bleeds and then you hemorrhage,” Jackson said.

“We called a timeout, made some adjustments, we didn’t do a good job with the adjustments. They got us, we called a 20-second timeout.

“I think once we got to that level [to stop it] and they ended up having to go back to [Rasheed] Wallace, which is their bread and butter, we were doing a better job defensively on everybody else.”

*

Meanwhile, the Lakers kept themselves in danger by missing 17 of 37 free-throw tries, including several in the fourth quarter.

“I didn’t think our players played with a lot of pressure in them,” Jackson said. “[But] free-throw shooting-wise? I could be wrong in that.

“Because free throws are a place where you stand up there exposed and isolated and can be a pressure-point. But that’s the only spot I thought we didn’t respond well.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LAKERS’ BIG 3

O’NEAL

Sun. Series

*--*

18 Points 25.9 9 Rebounds 12.4 5 Assists 4.3

*--*

BRYANT

Sun. Series

*--*

25 Points 20.4 11 Rebounds 4.9 7 Assists 5.9

*--*

RICE

Sun. Series

*--*

11 Points 11.0 6 Rebounds 3.7 4 Assists 2.0

*--*