O'Neal Shakes Off Kryptonite Symptoms

By TIM KAWAKAMI

May 2, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO —

This is when the soundtrack swells with trumpets, the hero scrambles up from temporary defeat, and, from far away, someone yells:

“Superman, where are you?”

Shaquille O’Neal, who wears an S tattoo on his arm and his emotions on his sleeve, plopped himself into a courtside chair at Arco Arena before the Laker practice Monday and acknowledged what was obvious during Sunday’s Game 3 loss to the Sacramento Kings.

Superman was nowhere to be found.

“I was Clark [Kent] yesterday,” O’Neal said, as sheepishly as is possible for him.

Left unsaid, but communicated by his eyes and his tone of voice: Superman almost certainly will be back here tonight, when the Lakers, still ahead, two games to one, get their second chance to finish off the Kings in this first-round playoff series.

If the Lakers lose again, the decisive Game 5 will be played Friday night at Staples Center.

“He’s going to have a better game--a lot better,” Kobe Bryant said of O’Neal. “You all know Shaq, you all know what he did this entire season.”

O’Neal missed 14 of 22 shots Sunday, made only one basket--an open dunk--in the fourth quarter when the Kings burst past the Lakers, missed nine of his 14 free throws, and generally seemed out of sorts.

O’Neal finished with 21 points, a total he topped 69 times during the regular season. He had eight field goals or fewer only nine times.

“Just one of those days, brother,” O’Neal said quietly, when asked why things went awry after a regular season of almost nightly dominance. “Just one of those days.”

Things got so off-kilter for O’Neal on Sunday that, at the 9:01 mark, he asked for a rare fourth-quarter break.

“He was tired, he asked out,” Coach Phil Jackson said.

“I was missing a couple shots; I wanted to get some water, try to come back in and pick it up,” O’Neal said of his two-minute break.

“But I never picked it up.”

O’Neal was back in the game at the 7:08 mark, but, Jackson said, Sacramento had begun to seize control of the game.

Did the Kings double-team him faster, or better, or deny the ball, or force him farther away from the post?

Why did O’Neal, who averaged 40 points against the Kings in a recent four-game span, suddenly seem so ineffective?

“It was me,” O’Neal said. “I just have to come in more aggressive. . . . I’m going to play the type of game we’re used to playing.”

Jackson said he wasn’t exactly sure why O’Neal needed the rest in the fourth quarter and why he couldn’t score consistently.

But Jackson guessed it was a combination of the Kings’ determination to put bodies on him--whether or not they were whistled for fouls--O’Neal’s errant free-throw shooting, and some early foul trouble caused by the Kings taking the ball at him.

“Those things, I think, exacerbated his mental toughness and that’s the area in which I think it’s difficult to overcome for Shaquille,” Jackson said.

“He’s learned that very well this year.

“In that process, a lot of things tumbled together, [which affected] his free-throw shooting and his field-goal percentage in the second half.”

So Jackson figures O’Neal was as much mentally wearied as physically tired?

“I think it wears a guy out,” Jackson said.

Jackson said O’Neal needs to just continue to play basic defense, and if the Kings want to barrel into him to try to draw fouls, the Lakers have to count on the correct whistles.

“They’ve done it almost every game,” Jackson said. “Their strategy is to get Shaquille in foul trouble and get him off the floor. Everybody would like to do it, I’m sure. You want to take out the best player.

“In the process, he just has to stay down and move his feet and let the referees make the right call.”

O’Neal picked up his second foul and had to be taken out with 3:57 left in the first quarter, which, Jackson suggested, knocked O’Neal and the Lakers out of sync.

“I think that’s real important, that we have him on the floor, use the time period that we like to substitute to get him out of the game, rather than have the game situations dictate the substitutions,” Jackson said.

But Jackson said that O’Neal having a difficult day shouldn’t spell defeat for the Lakers.

“Well, we have other players who can step up,” Jackson said. “It isn’t all Shaq. . . . He was eight for 22, [King forward Chris] Webber’s 11 for 24. . . . You know, the two big guns of both teams did not have a great shooting night, either one of them.

“We certainly can survive if Shaq doesn’t have a good shooting night, if other guys step up and other players play well, but we didn’t get that combination.”

King center Vlade Divac said he expected O’Neal to attack their defense with far more zeal tonight.

“He’ll be aggressive, no question about it,” Divac said.

“He’s their main guy and he’ll play active.

“I think we doubled him quickly, so he had to pass the ball. He didn’t have the best shots like he did in the first game [when O’Neal scored 46 points].

“If you let him play one on one, nobody can stop him.”

Said O’Neal, “We all just have to come out and do our part. I’m going to do my part. I’m sure the guys will do their part.”

NBA PLAYOFFS

Tonight’s Game 4

Lakers at Sacramento

7:30

Channel 9, TNT

Lakers lead best-of-five series, 2-1

Coverage

NOT SO BAD

Coach Phil Jackson explained why he felt it wasn’t such a terrible thing that the Lakers lost Sunday. Page 8

Philadelphia 105