Lakers Have Secured the Pole Position

Gentlemen, start your engines.

Before it’s too late.

That’s because the man they call “Diesel,” Shaquille O’Neal, blew by the Indiana Pacers, 104-87, in Game 1 of the NBA finals Wednesday as if they were, well, a Pace car.

O’Neal left the Pacers looking as if they’d been hit by a truck--named O’Neal.

“I’d go home,” O’Neal, smiling, said when asked how he would guard himself. “I’d fake an injury.”