Aching Best Uncertain for Game 6

Don’t tell the Lakers that Indiana point guard Travis Best’s injured left shoulder may be a factor in tonight’s Game 6 at Staples Center. The Lakers heard the same thing before Game 5 and all Best did was knock down his first two shots and had three assists in only 10 minutes of play.

But Best, injured in a Game 4 collision with Shaquille O’Neal, hasn’t worked out since Friday’s Game 5 and sat out the Pacers’ practice Sunday morning to rest his aching shooting shoulder.

“It’s real sore. I’ll have to see how it feels before the game,” Best said. “I know I won’t practice any more this season. I’ll do whatever I can to get ready for the games. . . . The soreness has died down a little bit, but they told me that [recovery] would be at least three weeks. It’s not going to get well any time soon.”

Best, a key contributor off the bench for Indiana, did not play at all in the second half of Game 5 because his shoulder stiffened after halftime. Since then, Best has slowly gotten better, but he is far from 100%.

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If Best is forced to sit because of his injury, veteran Mark Jackson will carry the load at point guard with versatile Jalen Rose as his backup.

Jackson is ready for the challenge.

“Whatever’s asked of me, that’s what I’m going to go out and do,” Jackson said. “This is the NBA finals and you don’t know how many chances you get to actually win this whole thing. Individually and collectively, we have to step it up and do whatever it takes.”

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The Pacers were forced to practice at the Lakers’ El Segundo facility instead of Staples Center because of Sunday’s Arena Football League game between the Avengers and Florida.

The alternate venue angered Bird, who wanted his team to get another chance to practice at Staples. The Pacers shot 39.6% in their two losses there to open the series, and many of the players said the cavernous building was a difficult place to get comfortable.

“It would have been nice to practice over there to get a pretty good feel for it,” Bird said. “The background makes it harder to shoot there.”

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In 82 regular season games, only four times did a team shoot 50% or better against the Lakers, who had the league’s best field goal percentage allowed at 41.6%.

In the NBA finals, however, the Pacers have exposed the Lakers’ defensive weaknesses in shooting at least 50% twice over the last three games. Veteran Sam Perkins said the Pacers have been getting open looks at the basket all series.

“It’s hard to really say why we’ll score 100 points one minute and then score 80-something the next,” Perkins said. “When they want to play D, they do. It’s just a matter of getting involved. When they get ahead, they play well.”

Only once during the regular season did the Lakers give up more than 100 points in three consecutive games and the Pacers did that in Games 3,4 and 5.

“It’s just a matter of them playing aggressive,” Perkins said about the difference in Lakers’ defense in Indiana compared to the way they played Games 1 and 2 at Staples Center.

“With us, we play aggressive defense whether we have the lead or not. We play that hard-nosed D because we have [an assistant] coach Dick Harter, who gets on you when you miss an assignment. You don’t want everyone upset at you so we all try collectively to hold each other up.”

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After being dominated by O’Neal for five games, the Pacers realize there’s not too much they can do to slow him down tonight. But stopping the rest of the Lakers is something the Pacers think they can do.

“Shaq’s scoring and rebounding has obviously been a constant,” Rose said. “We’ve allowed other guys to waver. Kobe Bryant got off for a great game against us in our building [in Game 4] but for the most part we’ve kept him pretty quiet as well as their other guys. If we can continue to do that we’ll find a way to get back into the series.”

Power forward Dale Davis, who has done the best job defending O’Neal for the Pacers, said Indiana is not about to concede big numbers to the Laker center tonight.