Bryant, O’Neal Suddenly Have Lot in Common

Kobe Bryant said he has no idea when--or why--Scottie Pippen came to think so little of him.

In fact, by Wednesday afternoon, he appeared somewhat stung and saddened by Pippen’s allegation that he exaggerated a rib injury to appear heroic--”like Mike,” Pippen said--in Sunday’s playoff opener. They’ll square off again at Staples Center tonight, in Game 2 of the best-of-five series between the Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers.

The Lakers won Game 1, and since then have heard the Trail Blazers complain about the officiating, mostly in regard to Shaquille O’Neal’s feet in the lane and elbows in their necks. If it was their intent to anger O’Neal, they appear to have accomplished that.

“Keep talking,” O’Neal said after practice Wednesday.

And then, the Pippen thing. Bryant said it bothered him.

“A little bit,” he said. “I respect Scottie so much. I look up to him. It’s a little disappointing.”

The Trail Blazers would love to see an enraged Bryant take his game at Pippen tonight for 30 shots, to have the Laker offense bog down in isolations on the wing, to have O’Neal turn his ire from Arvydas Sabonis and Mike Dunleavy back to Bryant.

“Nope,” Bryant said. “I’ll just stick to the script. I know he’s trying to get inside my head.”

The series that couldn’t possibly support another subplot added one anyway. While Laker Coach Phil Jackson traced the Pippen-Bryant rivalry to the Houston-Laker playoff matchup two years ago, it is possible it goes farther back, to opening night of 1999, the lockout season. In his first start at small forward, Bryant scored 25 points and took 10 rebounds. Pippen, guarded by Bryant, missed 11 of his first 12 shots, had two of them blocked by Bryant, and finished with 10 points.

“I love Scottie,” said Ron Harper, Pippen’s former teammate in Chicago. “Whatever Scottie says, Scottie says. I’m pretty sure he’s got something up his [sleeve].

“Scottie’s one of those ballplayers who’s going to say what’s on his mind. He’s trying to get stuff stirred up too. Our job is to keep our heads.”

So, as the Lakers and Trail Blazers play to hide their regular-season frailties in a run through the Western Conference playoffs, the Lakers come upon the game that could, indeed, turn their season. A loss would guarantee two games at the Rose Garden, with the downtrodden Trail Blazers smelling optimism for the first time in months.

Despite Sunday’s loss, Portland remains a team capable of burying the Lakers in mismatches. The Trail Blazers are wounded. They appear distracted by the referees, the behavior of Rasheed Wallace and whether Bryant is injured. Yet the Lakers are uncomfortable with them, with guarding Wallace and Steve Smith and Damon Stoudamire and, if he feels it, Pippen.

Both teams will play in part to put another victory between themselves and an emotionally ragged regular season. The playoffs have barely started--if you consider one game in eight days barely--and already comes a pivotal game.

“We have to come out and reestablish ourselves and prove ourselves to be the better team,” Laker guard Derek Fisher said. “I don’t think we can count on the success we had [Sunday], with so much time in between the games. It’s almost like one game and then another game. Not Game 2. If we stay focused on winning Thursday and not worrying about what happened [Sunday], I think we’ll be OK.”

The Lakers are wary of Game 2 meetings against Portland. After winning Game 1 of the conference finals against Portland a year ago, the Lakers lost Game 2 at Staples Center by 29 points. They eventually saved their season with two wins in Portland and one remarkable fourth quarter in Los Angeles, but the unpleasantness of Game 2 hasn’t been forgotten.

“I think they’re going to be more dangerous,” Bryant said. “They’re obviously going to come at us with something to prove. They still have a job to do here, and that’s to steal one game from us.

“They’re going to come out ready to attack. In Game 2 last year, Pippen pushed the ball down our throat. Stoudamire attacked. And we weren’t ready for their intensity.”

Other than four minutes at the start of the fourth quarter, the Lakers weren’t that much better than the Trail Blazers on Sunday.

“We hopefully have a better appreciation for this variety of attack that Portland can give us,” Jackson said. “They changed their attack mode last year between Games 1 and 2, and we reminded the players of that. They could feature some other players as scorers, to get them involved. We have to make sure we’re ready for that. Also, a lot of things change. The referee crew can change things up and have as big an influence on a game as anything else.”