Laker Reserves Again Apply Finishing Touch

Two teams actually did show up Tuesday night at Staples Center.

The Laker starters.

The Laker reserves.

The vacuum created by the absence of the Phoenix Suns was filled by Lakers 1A, a group that produced in the clincher against Sacramento in the first round of the playoffs and came alive at the right time again to help kick the dirt on another opponent.

“That’s how we would like it to go every night,” said guard Brian Shaw, one of the key contributors. “It doesn’t always work out that way. Tonight it did.”

It might have looked familiar. It was only days earlier, in Game 3, that forwards Robert Horry and Rick Fox supplied an infusion at almost exactly the same time, starting early in the second quarter. That’s when the roof started to cave in on the Suns this time too.

The Lakers weren’t exactly struggling, leading by seven points, but they weren’t going to be confused with overwhelming either, having shot only 33.3% and scored 21 points in the first quarter. Coach Phil Jackson sent Shaw, Horry and Fox out to begin the quarter with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. One minute 52 seconds later, with the lead at eight, Travis Knight replaced O’Neal.

The lineup was Bryant and four subs. From that came a rout.

Rodney Rogers’ two free throw cut the Phoenix deficit to seven again, but Horry followed that with a three-pointer. On the ensuing possession, Rogers lost the ball and the Lakers went the other way on a fastbreak that culminated with Shaw feeding Horry for a driving slam dunk.

The Suns, down by 12 points, called timeout. O’Neal came back in, for Knight, but Derek Fisher replaced Bryant, so the Lakers were still going with four from the bench, now with a dominating center out there instead of a dominating guard.

It made no difference. Fisher made an 18-footer. The next Laker trip, Fox bombed in a three-pointer, pushing the lead to 17, leaving the Suns to wonder what hit them, besides maybe the actual end of the bench. One more thing to go numb about.

It was a 15-point game--the margin, not Phoenix’s scoring total--by the time Bryant replaced Fisher with 6:47 left and the Lakers dared play two starters together. Maybe only resting the reserves.

Five minutes later, they attacked again, still in great waves. This time, Knight, Fisher, Horry and Shaw joined Glen Rice, the starting small forward, and the Lakers rolled more than ever.

The lead was 22 at the time, with 1:37 remaining. By halftime, the lead was 26.

“Part of it was, we recognized the situation,” Fisher said. “We understood that we had to come out and play at a different level than we had. Not necessarily scoring more points, but bringing a different intensity than we had before in the series.”

Said Fox: “Kobe and Shaq, neither of them had 20 points [in the game]. All the way across the board, we all kind of had a piece of them.”

Them being the Suns, or what passed for the Suns. Horry had five points, one blocked shot, one rebound and one steal in the quarter, again keeping starting power forward A.C. Green on the bench the entire second period, just like Game 3. Fox made two of three shots, both three-pointers, likewise a carbon of Friday in Phoenix, when he made two from behind the arc and also had six points in the same stretch, that time to help erase a 12-point deficit from the first quarter and propel the Lakers to victory. Shaw got all 12 minutes at point guard. In all, the substitutes made six of 10 shots in the quarter in Game 5, the starters five of 12.

So heavy was the reliance on the bench in the period that two starters, Green and Harper, didn’t play at all and another, Rice, went only four minutes.

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Defense

Fewest points allowed by Lakers in a playoff game:

* 65--Phoenix at Lakers, May 16, 2000

* 68--Seattle vs. Lakers, May 6, 1998

* 70--Golden State vs. Lakers, April 21, 1973

* 77--Portland at Lakers, April 25, 1997

* 79--San Francisco vs. Lakers, April 5, 1969