Solo Act Can't End Big Show

By TIM KAWAKAMI

March 10, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND —

Want to see the future of NBA scoring showmanship?

It was here Thursday dressed in Golden State white and gold, with a headband and electric legs, and its name was Larry Hughes.

After taking a 41-point hit, personally delivered, the Lakers will remember him, for sure.

But the right here and right now of the NBA was present too--Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant and the rest of the Lakers--and still unstoppable.

Looking a little less flashy but able to absorb the Hughes air war with relative ease, the Lakers ground out a 109-92 victory before 20,136 at The Arena in Oakland, the largest Warrior crowd ever.

Hughes, recently traded from Philadelphia, scored more than any Laker opponent has this season, but the Lakers brushed him off with a few fourth-quarter flicks and flurries, and walked away with their 17th consecutive victory, the second-longest streak in franchise history.

Being able to win easily meant far more than any wounded pride over letting Hughes have a career night.

“My theory is, if you score all those points and you lose, who cares?” Ron Harper said. “If you score and you get a win, yeah, that counts.

“He had a large game. But they lost the game by what, 17? I mean, it ain’t about how many points you score. It’s, did your team get a win or not?”

Part of the reason Hughes was able to burst to the basket so frequently, Harper suggested, was that the Lakers were never too worried that the game was in jeopardy or that they needed to make a statement in the paint.

“I’m sure if we were in a tight, close ballgame, there would’ve been some guys who probably would’ve knocked him down sometimes,” Harper said.

“I mean, he was going right to the hole a lot, but we had a large lead, so we weren’t that concerned.”

Laker Coach Phil Jackson also said that, once a player with that much talent gets that hot, there isn’t much even a great team can do, other than let him get his points.

“I thought he got a hot hand, he got really fluid out there on the floor,” Jackson said. “It’s OK. You know, we had the game under control for most of the quarters. . . . Sometimes you get a kid going hot like that and you just have to suffer the abuse you get.”

It was, basically, two versus one: The Lakers had two offensive superstars, and the Warriors had Hughes, which, of course, is more than they could have said for at least the last few years.

Bryant--who at times got into a little basket-for-basket back and forth with Hughes--led the Lakers with 30 points, and O’Neal had 29 points and 13 rebounds.

The highest opponent scoring total against the Lakers had been by Seattle’s Gary Payton, who had 36 points.

The victory raised the Laker record to 51-11--40 games above .500 for the first time since the end of the 1997-98 season--and pulled them 4 1/2 games ahead of Portland in the race for the Western Conference’s best record.

The last Laker loss? Way back to Feb. 1, the last time they even thought about losing.

The Laker streak, which follows an earlier 16-game run, ties for the sixth-best streak in NBA history; there have been three other 17-game streaks, the last one by the 1994-95 San Antonio Spurs.

“That’s a big number,” Jackson said of 17. “You know, I was in the league when 18 was the largest number. And we used to think that was an incredible number of games won. And then the Lakers in ‘71-72 just blew it out [to 33].

“It’s incredible we’ve run up this number of wins because it says we haven’t been defeated now in almost six weeks.”

Said O’Neal after the Lakers’ ninth consecutive road win: “We’re just trying to win. We have good team chemistry, we have the right players together and we play hard. The coach demands we play a certain way and it speaks for itself.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

CURRENT STREAK

Score and opponent’s field-goal percentage in each game:

Opponent: Score (Pct.)

1. Utah: 113-67 (.296)

2. Denver: 106-98 (.419)

3. Minnesota : 114-81 (.341)

4. at Chicago: 88-76 (.377)

5. at Charlotte: 92-85 (.416)

6. at Orlando: 107-99, OT (.454)

7. at Phila.: 87-84 (.388)

8. at New Jersey: 97-89 (.436)