Shaq Becomes Handy Again

Five months ago, they were the hands that held a city.

Tuesday, they ached with two injured thumbs.

“The only way I’m coming out is if they take me out,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “I’m not going in there saying, ‘My stuff is hurting, get me out.”’

Five months ago, it was the body around which was built an NBA championship.

Tuesday, it had a tummy ache.

“I took that medicine,” O’Neal said of anti-inflammatories prescribed for the thumbs. “And it made me sick.”

Five months ago, this was the best player in basketball.

Tuesday afternoon, he was just another guy perhaps wondering why that player can’t get more shots.

“Write what you see,” O’Neal said.

Whatever you say.

Despite his 15 first-quarter points and 34 overall in the Lakers’ 119-103 band-aid victory against the Denver Nuggets later Tuesday at Staples Center, O’Neal is not the same force as last season.

The Lakers are not the same team.

If you think the two things are coincidental, then you probably also like Phil Jackson’s new haircut.

“They played at about 60% tonight,” Nugget Nick Van Exel said of his former team. “They beat us on cruise control.”

O’Neal’s first battle is with his thumbs.

His second, although he’ll never admit it, is with his team’s trigger finger.

The first problem--a sprained left and sore right thumb--is the kind that could quietly bother him for weeks.

Sort of like that abdominal strain of years past, only he never had to shoot or rebound with his belly.

“It’s no joke,” said Horace Grant, who has suffered the same injuries. “Shots fall off your hand. Rebounds fall away. You have trouble grabbing the ball. And if you’re Shaq, everybody is always hacking your hands, which just makes it worse.”

His second problem--Kobe Bryant, naturally--is the sort that could make sore thumbs seem like hangnails.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. This was solved last year.

Jackson showed up and focused the lens on O’Neal and ordered everyone else to squeeze into the background.

O’Neal flourished with the confidence, Bryant matured in the fringes, and everyone went home with new diamonds. There was no reason to think this year would be any different.

Until Bryant started offering plenty of reasons.

Like 31 against San Antonio. And 29 against Houston.

At the same time Bryant was throwing up a barrage of shots that reminded us of the bad old days, O’Neal’s numbers were dropping quicker than that smile.

In a three-game period before Tuesday, his average fell nearly eight points, from 34 points to 26.7.

His shooting percentage fell nearly 6%, from 60.4% to 54%.

The Lakers lost two of those three games.

Five months after assuming that the roof had been fixed, Laker fans walked inside Tuesday to a drip and a stain.

It was a sight we thought we’d never again be seeing, inspiring a conversation we should no longer be having.

Jackson intimated it wasn’t that big of a deal.

He said that while O’Neal was still the man, other teams were figuring out better ways of defending that man.

“Teams know what our strategy is,” Jackson said. “More and more, they are altering their defenses and doing more collapsing around Shaq.”

Which means O’Neal should think and work differently, according to Jackson.

“It is his responsibility to read that defense and react,” Jackson said. “That’s something we’ve been working on.”

O’Neal agreed, saying, “Yeah, I will read defenses better.”

However, he added, “But I would also like them to get me the ball in better positions, like where Karl Malone gets it.”

In other words, O’Neal knows he has to adjust to schemes that will no longer let him move so quickly to within a few feet of the basket.

But he hopes his teammates will have the patience to allow him to work his way down there before either throwing him the ball too far from the basket, or not throwing it to him at all.

Last year, the Lakers showed that patience. This year, they haven’t.

There is some thought that Bryant--having shown last spring that he is on the verge of Jordanesque heroics--now wants his own MVP award.

He could grab one indeed. He could win many. But just not now.

This is still O’Neal’s team. There is still only one of him in the NBA. The Lakers still cannot win a championship without him.

If Bryant wins his first MVP award, the Lakers do not win a second consecutive title.

If O’Neal wins it, they probably do.

In everything from wisecracks to plotted maneuvers, Jackson said as much last year.

We’re waiting for him to say it again.

He probably thinks the Lakers don’t need to hear it again, but they apparently do.

Laker fans thought they’d never have to live through this again, but they apparently will.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.