A Knockout Punch

They live. The biggest, baddest, scariest, most unpredictable basketball team in the world did not expire Friday, though it was worth a few thrills and a wave of anxious chills.

The Lakers saved themselves, saved their season, saved millions of Southern Californians several weeks of mourning, and saved their best basketball for the last game of this stunning series.

In front of a roaring Staples Center crowd on Friday, Shaquille O’Neal set the pace and the rest of the Lakers took it home, smashing the Sacramento Kings, 113-86, in the fifth and deciding game of this first-round playoff matchup.

“It’s like in tennis, every champion usually has an early match when he almost gets upset, and it wakes him up,” Laker forward Rick Fox said. “That’s what this was like for us. The Kings woke us up. They put a little fear in us.”

The Lakers move on to play the Phoenix Suns in the conference semifinals. They will will open play Sunday at 2:30 at Staples Center, with Game 2 on Wednesday, also at Staples.

Which, more than ever before, seems like a giant advantage for the Lakers.

On Friday, the Lakers got the calls from the officials and got an enormous boost from their crowd, the combination of which had the Kings backpedaling and the Lakers once again looking like the best team in the league.

“We knew if we didn’t play our ‘A’ game, we’d make history tonight,” O’Neal said. “And we didn’t want to make that kind of history.”

The atmosphere at Staples, usually a dull den of little noise and no crowd involvement, was rousing from the pregame introductions, and appeared to rattle the Kings, although not nearly as much as Arco Arena shocked the Lakers in Games 3 and 4.

So, by having an unexpected dance with near-defeat, the Lakers also may have found a safe harbor for the playoffs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd in L.A. as live as this one,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “The players fed off that energy.”

Given the Lakers’ 67 regular-season victories and aspirations toward championship greatness, this was a game that should have never been necessary, against an opponent that slumped into the postseason.

But, with so much at stake, at such a dramatic moment, the Lakers, and their crowd, were up to the task on this night.

“The emotion is just that you’re alive in this playoff series,” Jackson said. “What we wanted was to give it our best shot. That’s the important thing, we came out and played the type of game we talked about.”

O’Neal, who had been pushed and pestered into a scoring drought in the games at Arco Arena, awoke with sparks flying and lightning bolts coming out of his arms.

Deep into the third quarter, he had outrebounded the entire King team on his own, and until he was removed from the game for good early in the fourth quarter, he scored 32 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, both game highs.

“We never had a doubt we would play like that,” O’Neal said. “This was a good test for us.”

Kobe Bryant, meanwhile, was not needed to create the Laker offense, as he had been for the last three games. Instead, he simply made plays--scoring 17 points and passing out six assists--and harried the King perimeter players into distraction.

The Kings made only 26 of their 77 shot tries (33.8%) and were outrebounded, 54-35, large indications that the Lakers were more aggressive and determined to knock around Sacramento from the tip-off.

The Lakers also received a crackling bounce-back game from power forward A.C. Green, who had a dismal two-game Sacramento swing but scored 10 points and grabbed six rebounds Friday.

By the midpoint of the third quarter, the Lakers were at full stampede and the Kings were in various degrees of retreat.

The game was within reasonable reach for Sacramento until the Lakers took off on a 15-2 run from the 7:23 mark nearly to the end of the third quarter.

That bumped the lead to 84-57, and from there, the Kings had nowhere to go but toward desperation.

The Lakers scored the first four baskets of the fourth period, the last by O’Neal, and suddenly the lead was 97-62.

Overall, the Lakers made 52.2% of their shots (47 for 90) after back-to- back errant outings at Arco.

Other than Chris Webber’s standard victimization of the Laker defense (16 first- half points, four assists), the first half could not have gone along at a more pleasing Laker rhythm if Jackson had barked out the beat himself.

After carping about Webber’s habit of playing zone-like defense to help out against O’Neal, Webber was whistled twice on the same early Laker possession.

That helped free things up inside for O’Neal, and he thrived, making seven of his first eight field-goal tries and racking up 20 first-half points as the Lakers took a 59-44 lead at the break.

“Those illegal defenses, I think, created the opportunities and openings we needed to have,” Jackson said. “I thought A.C. did a good job adjusting to that and it created the room and space we need to run our offense.”

Jackson saluted the Kings for giving the Lakers such a difficult, long series.

“They gave us a lot of push, and we needed that as a basketball team if we’re going to continue and advance on,” Jackson said. “And I think we grew because of that, as a team. And hopefully we learned a lot about ourselves in the process. . . .

“I’ve said all year that this team really needed to have a trial by fire.”

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By The Numbers

Laker home record this season, including playoffs: 39-5

Kings’ road record this season, including playoffs: 14-30

Rebounds for Shaq in first half: 14

Rebounds for Kings in first half: 12

Consecutive playoff series won by Phil Jackson: 13

Kings’ field-goal percentage in second half (11 of 35): .314

Lakers’ record against Phoenix this season: 4-0

Series Results

LAKERS vs. SACRAMENTO

Lakers win series, 3-2

GAME 1

Lakers 117, Kings 107

GAME 2

Lakers 113, Kings 89

GAME 3

Kings 99, Lakers 91

GAME 4

Kings 101, Lakers 88

GAME 5

Lakers 113, Kings 86

Next Series

LAKERS vs. PHOENIX

Best-of-seven series

GAME 1

Sunday, 2:30 p.m.

at Staples, Ch. 4

GAME 2

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.

at Staples, Fox Sp. Net

GAME 3

Friday, 7:30 p.m.

at Phoenix, Ch. 9, TNT

GAME 4

May 14, 2:30 p.m.

at Phoenix, Ch. 4

GAME 5*

May 16, TBA

at Staples, Fox Sp. Net

GAME 6*

May 18, TBA

at Phoenix, Ch. 9, TNT

GAME 7*

May 20, TBA

at Staples, Ch. 4

*if necessary

*

Coverage

FUN HAS TO END

It was fun while it lasted for the Kings and their fans. Mark Heisler’s column. Page 9

FEEL THE NOISE

The fans weren’t as loud as the ones in Sacramento, but they got into the action early. Page 9

Elsewhere

UTAH: 96

SEATTLE: 93

Karl Malone scores 27 points and Utah wins the playoff series, 3-2. Page 7