One Key Trend Still Favors Kobe

The running statistic, and a carryover trend from last year, says the Lakers have a better chance of winning when Kobe Bryant leads them in scoring than when Shaquille O’Neal does.

The numbers this year: 11-0 when Bryant leads, 6-3 when O’Neal leads, and 1-0 when they tie for the team lead.

Last season, they were 24-9 when Bryant led them, 29-16 when O’Neal did, 2-1 when they tied, and they won the only game another player, Horace Grant, led them.

“I think ultimately [O’Neal] is going to be the major focus [of the opposing defense],” Coach Phil Jackson said. “And when he doesn’t have to do the scoring and can allow that focus--the double-team, the extra effort that creates that situation for other players to score behind--it often gives us a better game. There also are nights when nobody else can do the job and he has to carry us. That’s been more frequent than I’ve liked the last few games.”

Before Sunday’s victory, O’Neal had led the team in each of the past five games, during which he averaged 33 points. The Lakers lost two of the games. Asked for his theory, O’Neal laughed and said, “Because when they throw me the ball they just stand around.”

The statistic, or the relative validity of it, did not bother O’Neal, a fact that speaks to the growth of his relationship with Bryant. In fact, he said, he and Bryant have formed a loose partnership.

“As long as one of the Fire and Ice Boys are doing it--I’m fire, he’s ice--it doesn’t matter to me,” O’Neal said. “That’s our new corporation. Me and Kobe, a.k.a. ‘The Ecstasy Boys.”’

Then he spelled it.

“Yeah,” he said. “What happens when you mess with Ecstasy?”

Uh, you die?

“That’s right,” he said, laughing. “You mess with me and Kobe, you won’t make it.”

*

Many mornings, when Slava Medvedenko’s telephone rings, he knows who beckons. It is Aleksandr Volkov, the legendary Ukrainian player, the former NBA player, and his friend. The call often comes at the same time, after Volkov has had a chance to read the Laker box score.

The two talked often last week.

After scoring 56 points in the Lakers’ first 18 games, a run that included three games he was healthy and did not play, Medvedenko scored a combined 28 points against Seattle and the Clippers.

He had a career-high 18 points and seven rebounds, four of them offensive, against the Clippers.

“I think it’s just the chance to play,” Medvedenko said slowly. “I show them every practice what I can do. Now it’s just a matter of minutes.”

The playing time will come slowly for Medvedenko, 22 and behind Samaki Walker and Robert Horry in the power-forward rotation, and basically out of the center rotation.

Jackson said he would make no extra effort to find Medvedenko minutes, primarily because he needs Horry on the floor.