This Isn’t Pacers’ Kind of Scene

See Southern California and die?

Like one of those bad packaged tours, everything went wrong for the Pacers on this trip. From the bus that got tied up in traffic and got half of the players plus Larry Bird to the opener just an hour before it started . . . to Shaquille O’Neal going for 43 on them in Game 1 . . . to the fire alarm that went off in their Santa Monica hotel at 7 a.m. Friday . . . to their inability to take advantage of Kobe Bryant’s absence in Game 2 . . . to Bird, breaking his promise not to hack Shaquille O’Neal.

In a record that may stand forever--or at least until Sunday--O’Neal went to the line 39 times, missed 21 of them. And Bryant played only nine minutes and scored only two points. And still the Pacers lost.

Of course, they’re going home now, so maybe they can think of something new, like dropping the Conseco Fieldhouse scoreboard on Shaq.

“I don’t worry about [TV] ratings, I’m trying to win a ballgame right now,” Bird said. “Whatever it takes to win a ballgame, we’re gonna do. If it takes a four-hour game, that’s what it is. . . .

“When the game’s that tight, when you get down to four or five, it’s the best opportunity to get the ball back. He was struggling early, but the more you put him at the line, the better he gets. . . .

“Tonight, I thought Shaq was better than the other night. I thought he was dominating, caused a lot of problems for us. We’re not getting any scoring out of our post players, other than Jalen [Rose, a small forward] and Austin [Croshere a reserve power forward]. They’re beating us with strength on the inside and we’re living on the jump shot.”

This is living?

Bird broke a lot of promises Friday. In the Eastern finals, he resisted his players’ suggestions, to him and in the press, that they double-team the players the Knicks were isolating, telling them they had to believe in the system.

However, after O’Neal went for 43 on him in Game 1 and fouled Rik Smits out in 20 minutes, Bird junked the system and went to Plan B: Everyone meet at Shaq.

“We’re not a double-teaming team,” said Pacer General Manager David Kahn before the game. “We’ve had to take a crash course in the last two days. Like cramming for a final.”

This just in: You flunked.

Bird has a history of rallying teams here. In the 1984 finals, after the Lakers blew the Celtics out in Game 3 in the Forum to take a 2-1 lead, Larry Legend called his teammates “sissies.” The Celtics then won Game 4, which will forever be remembered in Lakerdom as the one in which Boston’s Kevin McHale torpedoed Kurt Rambis on a layup, turning the rest of the series into a street fight.

Bird was asked before Friday’s game if some brave Pacer needed to take a hard foul on O’Neal.

“You mean like McHale?” Bird asked, grinning.

“Well, what I believe is that they have to play hard. When Shaq gets the ball underneath the basket, instead of going up and trying to block his shot, which is almost impossible, they have to take the hard foul and put him at the line. It’s not to hurt anyone, it’s to try and save the two points and make him make both.”

In Game 1, O’Neal took 31 shots from the floor--of which he made 21--while going to the line only six times, a difference Bird complained about repeatedly.

Friday, the numbers changed, with O’Neal attempting 18 shotsfrom the fieldand 39 free throws.

Well, at least the Pacers let him know they were around.

“Well, I’m not a fan of the Hack-a-Shaq,” Reggie Miller said. “I like to play straight-up, old-style basketball. But it almost worked for us tonight, if we could have made a couple of those free throws and a couple shots down the stretch . . .

“In an instance like that, when the game is two or six or seven points, I can understand that. When I first saw it in the Portland series, when [the Blazers fouled O’Neal when] they were down 15 or 16, there I don’t see it. . . .

“We had a golden opportunity tonight that slipped through our fingers.”

The bottom line was, the Pacers weren’t good enough. Not with Bryant in, or Bryant out, or O’Neal chained to the foul line. This didn’t look like the matchup of the ages before it started, and it hasn’t gained in charm since.

“Well, we need some home cooking,” said Miller. “If there’s any time we need our fans and we need a win in our building, it will be on Sunday. The pressure is squarely on us. We understand that. It would have been nice to get one here, but we didn’t. You can’t hang your head. . . . Because they’re going to be coming in. . . .loosey-goosey. Because if I’m them, I’m just coming in to get one.”

Thanks for coming. Now go home.