Lakers Serve Up a Half-Pounder

This, whatever it is becoming, appears to have as much to do with the Lakers, with what they started in April, and with what Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant can be together, than anything the NBA might lack.

The Lakers are 15-1, and now brutishly so. They defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves, 102-76, Saturday night at Staples Center, where O’Neal returned from Friday’s ejection in Seattle with 23 points and nine rebounds in 32 minutes. Bryant shot poorly and still scored 18 points in 27 minutes.

As a result, the best start in franchise history continued against the Timberwolves. In 16 games, the Lakers won seven, lost one, and won eight, the last six by an average of 19 points.

In the past 10 days, they’ve routed Milwaukee and Minnesota at home, and Seattle and Denver on the road. Dating to last season and including the playoffs, the Lakers have won 38 of 40 games, and now have folks wondering if they shouldn’t better the Chicago Bulls’ record of 72 wins in a season.

But not them.

“It’d be nice to be able to feel really good about what we’re doing,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “You have to take wins and enjoy them, but we go into Sacramento on Friday.”

They also play Dallas on Wednesday.

“We’ll take this,” Jackson said. “This is great. I’m not used to a team starting as quick as this team is starting.”

Indeed, it was Jackson who predicted the opposite.

“I always predict a slow start,” he said.

It seems clear now that the Lakers found something in their 23-1 conclusion to last season, and that that momentum did not die in three months away.

“They came back with a real good concept of how to play,” Jackson said.

On the backs of Wally Szczerbiak and Kevin Garnett, the Timberwolves stayed with the Lakers for a half. .

Nothing, really, that a 31-point third quarter wouldn’t solve, and so the Lakers took a tied score at halftime and made it a 15-point lead to start the fourth quarter, and dismissed the Timberwolves with defense and jump shots and more O’Neal.

Lindsey Hunter, who scored 12 third-quarter points in Friday’s 15-point victory in Seattle, scored 11 in the third quarter against the Timberwolves. Devean George, who has added unexpected depth at small forward, scored 12 points.

“We feel like we’re definitely on a roll,” Bryant said. “We also know a lot has played into us being on a roll.”

Seattle at midnight became Los Angeles at dusk, the SuperSonics became the Timberwolves, Gary Payton became Kevin Garnett, and this is when the Lakers are supposed to be vulnerable.

There is O’Neal’s turf toe--”Hallux, as in big toe,” he said, as if reading from a textbook. “Rigidus, as in really stiff.”

It hurts all of the time, it suffocates careers in the NFL, and there is no reason to believe O’Neal’s will subside any time soon. That said, O’Neal has started the season reasonably well, and appeared to have plenty of motivation against the Timberwolves, given Friday’s events.

“I like where we are,” said O’Neal, who wore kneepads for the second consecutive game. “We’re still not playing our best basketball though.”

The Timberwolves had been in Los Angeles since Wednesday, when they lost to the Clippers by 19 points. Between then and Saturday’s game, the Lakers went to Seattle and back, Friday night’s flight returning at about 1 o’clock Saturday morning.

Minnesota had lost two in a row, their two-three zone defense having given up 112 points to the SuperSonics, and then a more palatable 94 points to the Clippers. But the losses began to dampen an otherwise strong start by a franchise that re-signed Joe Smith, after losing him to last season’s contract nastiness.

Szczerbiak had 19 points, 17 coming in the first half. Garnett missed 13 of 18 shots and scored only 11.

While Jackson recognized that O’Neal’s first-quarter departure Friday night was not entirely of his own doing, he also asked--nicely--that it not happen again.

“We’d just as soon not go through games without you on the floor,” Jackson told him.

He also predicted 40 points and 20 rebounds from O’Neal, and then laughed. Sort of.

“For our team it’d be nice if he picked it up,” Jackson said, “because he didn’t play last night and [the rest of the team] played back to back.”