They’re Kings for Day

You almost forgot they had weaknesses, but they do.

You had only vague memories of a time when Shaquille O’Neal didn’t force his foes into scared surrender, and when the Laker bench failed to fire.

When the bridge to victory was set for crossing, and the Lakers blew it up instead.

So, if you were stunned and discomfited by the Lakers’ Game 3 loss, 99-91, to the Sacramento Kings on Sunday, you were not alone, not by a long shot.

“I want them to be down,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said of his players. “They should be embarrassed by the way they played today.”

You thought they were unbeatable?

Not in Game 3 before 17,317 at Arco Arena, with O’Neal struggling with his shooting touch (at the free-throw line and from the field) and the Kings finding magic performances from of Tony Delk and Predrag Stojakovic.

And now the Lakers are forced into Game 4 here Tuesday.

“It doesn’t feel right,” said Kobe Bryant, who led the Lakers with a playoff career-high 35 points, 16 coming in the fourth quarter. “It feels awkward.

“We had a chance to close it out. We had this game in our hands. We just basically handed it to them. That’s embarrassing.”

In a hail of missed free throws (they made only 16 of 32 tries) and a stunning fourth-quarter stumble (when the Kings went on an 18-2 run to take control of the game), the Lakers failed to complete a three-game sweep and opened at least a glimmer of doubt on their presumed march to a championship.

The Lakers won 67 regular-season games, have the sure-thing most valuable player, were the class of the league all year. . . . Can one clunker of a fourth quarter erode their air of invincibility?

“I think we still have that air,” said co-captain Ron Harper. “I don’t think I’m going to allow us to be down as a basketball team. . . .

“The one thing I told the guys, ‘We let this slip through our hands. It’s our fault. We can’t blame it on anybody, we’ve got to blame it on what we did.’

“We missed foul shots and dumb things that we just don’t do as a team.”

It was strange, because, until the fourth quarter, despite O’Neal’s poor shooting, the Lakers showcased many of their usual winning points.

O’Neal made only eight of 22 field-goal tries (and only five of 14 free throws), but still grabbed 17 rebounds and prevented anything soft from the Kings to venture near the basket.

The Laker defense, through three quarters, was solid enough to slow the Kings’ offense to a jog and prevent any wild eruptions.

After three careful quarters, the Lakers were ahead, 71-66, and one more patient period would complete a powerful three-game sweep.

Then? “We just had a terrific fourth quarter,” King Coach Rick Adelman said.

Then?

“You know, you have to make free throws,” Jackson said, pointing out the Lakers missed 13 of 24 free throws in the third quarter, when they could have and should have been extending the lead into double digits. “If you’re going to win a basketball game, you have to make free throws.

“And we had opportunities all the way through . . . to really solve this game and have a double-digit lead and have some things happen for us.

“We just didn’t do the things that would’ve give us the lead to absorb that fourth quarter. . . . They got within closing distance, and when they did close, they went right by us.”

Then?

Chris Webber, of course, was the trigger man, slicing through the Laker defense for three baskets and three assists in the final quarter, finishing with 29 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists.

But Sacramento got its biggest push from Delk, who scored 10 of his 11 points and grabbed four offensive rebounds during the last King run, and Stojakovic, who erupted from a slump for 19 points--10 in the fourth.

The Kings passed the Lakers with 9:43 left in the game after Delk grabbed back-to-back offensive boards to retain possession for Sacramento, and finally Stojakovic made a three-point shot to make the score 73-72.

The Lakers had one flurry left, rallying behind Bryant to grab back a five-point lead, but then the King wave hit, when Sacramento scored on eight consecutive possessions and the Lakers dropped away.

“We realize what happened here,” forward Glen Rice said. “We tried to take the life out of them, and it just didn’t happen. . . .

“Things didn’t go as we wanted it to go, and sometimes it’s going to happen that way. You’ve just got to be able to regroup and be ready for the next one.”

With O’Neal pushed out of the picture, the Lakers got Bryant to raise his offensive performance (he scored the Lakers’ last nine points in desperation time)--but nobody else.

The Laker bench managed only 11 points, and Sacramento got 34; meanwhile, Rice was inconsistent, making only five of 13 shots.

“There [are] going to be times when Shaq’s thing isn’t going to be going,” said guard Brian Shaw, “and that’s when the rest of us have to do our jobs.”

Harper, who serves as an adjunct to Jackson most of the time, said the important thing will be for the Laker players to let the emotions and frustrations of this game go, and come back stronger.

“It’s good to be mad,” Harper said. “Now we know what we have to do Tuesday night. We have to come in here Tuesday night and put it on them every chance we get.

“I said, ‘Don’t be mad, you guys should be happy. You get to keep playing basketball Tuesday.’

“Hey, we could’ve had seven days off. That’s too many days, I think.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Scoring Breakdown

Game 3: Sacramento 99, Lakers 91

Starters vs. Bench

Lakers

Starters: 80

Bench: 11

Kings

Starters: 65

Bench: 34

*

Team Breakdown

Lakers

Kobe Bryant: 35

Shaquille O’Neal: 21

Rest of team: 35

Kings

Chris Webber: 29

Piedrag Slojakovic: 19

Rest of team: 51

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Series

LAKERS vs. SACRAMENTO

Lakers lead series, 2-1

GAME 1

Lakers: 117

Kings: 107

GAME 2

Lakers: 113

Kings: 89

GAME 3

Sacramento: 99

Lakers: 91

GAME 4

Tuesday at Sacramento,

7:30 p.m., Channel 9, TNT

GAME 5 *

May 5 at Staples Center,

Time TBA, Fox Sports Net

* if necessary

GAME REPORT: Page 10

LAKER NOTES: Page 10

KING NOTES: Page 10