Chick-Out Line Opens

The Lakers played without Chick Hearn in the building for the first time in 36 years.

That, for a night, was enough in the way of organizational oddities, though just barely.

They defeated the Houston Rockets, 107-101, Thursday night at Compaq Center, where they spent most of a 16-point lead, then made their free throws and wearily gave the Rockets their 15th consecutive loss.

Shaquille O’Neal played dully. Kobe Bryant missed 17 of 26 attempts. A couple of Rocket rookies combined for 37 points.

And yet Derek Fisher made seven of nine three-pointers--a career high in makes--and scored 23 points, Devean George had a critical late put-back, and the Lakers flew off to Memphis at 19-3 for only the fourth time in franchise history.

This can, of course, be the Laker way. They beat poor teams the same way a father runs ahead of his 6-year-old, with just enough effort, with smiles on their faces, with utter confidence. It doesn’t always work, but the Lakers like a good challenge, and the Rockets made just enough shots to keep them intrigued.

“They went down fighting,” said Bryant, who scored a game-high 27 points but lacked his touch after three days off.

Eddie Griffin had 25 points and 13 rebounds, Tierre Brown scored 12 points, and Cuttino Mobley, after first-half foul trouble, scored 13 points in the fourth quarter. Rocket scorers Steve Francis, Maurice Taylor and Glen Rice are on the injured list, so Mobley was the only starter to average as many as nine points.

Ultimately, the Lakers got what they wanted--the win--and the Rockets got what they wanted--a compelling effort against the two-time NBA champions. The Lakers helped by taking a 14-point lead into the fourth quarter and then not making a field goal until their eighth possession. And the Rockets twice drew within a point.

“We feel like they did a good job of hitting good shots, big shots,” Bryant said. “We’re not concerned with letting a team back into the ballgame. We’ve had more games keeping teams down.”

It might have been easier had O’Neal played his usual game. Instead, he played his usual Houston game, which, for whatever reason, lacks inspiration. Set up against Kelvin Cato and Kevin Willis, O’Neal was six for 16 from the field for 16 points. He blocked four shots, but in one third-quarter sequence had two of his own shots blocked, one by Cato and the next by Griffin.

“Shaq was fine,” Coach Phil Jackson said, and then grinned. “Why?”

Well ...

“Just because he was getting shots blocked and he wasn’t moving very quickly?” Jackson said.

Well ...

“He’s fine,” Jackson said. “He had to play Santa Claus and he was probably carrying a lot of presents to people who needed them. I don’t know.

“What I liked about it is they went to Shaq three times to start the third quarter and he wasn’t moving quickly, or with a lot of energy. The referees bought in and wouldn’t call a foul for him, and the rest of the team picked it up.”

The Santa Claus reference was lost on everyone but Jackson.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” O’Neal said on his way to the bus. “I slept too late today. I slept from 12 to 6.”

He said he tried to pull more out of himself, tried to drag his head off the pillow, and could not. Jackson held O’Neal out of the fourth until the quarter was nearly half done, apparently until he was sure he needed him. A minute later, Jackson replaced Lindsey Hunter with Fisher, who made one last three-pointer to give the Lakers a 98-92 lead and all but finish the Rockets.

“Our focus was poor, I thought,” Jackson said. “I felt they played a style of game where they felt they could score when they needed to and step it up a little defensively when they had to, and then we got ourselves behind.”

The Rockets haven’t won a game since Nov. 20, and not on their own floor since Nov. 17.

They shot themselves alongside the Lakers for most of three quarters, and then shot themselves nearly out of it, which is the fragile life of a team of shooters. So, while Coach Rudy Tomjanovich had a lot of fist-pumping moments in the first half, the seemingly inevitable arose as the second coursed through a couple of short shooting slumps. The Lakers led by 16. And, then, they didn’t. And then it was enough, again.

Afterward, Bryant laughed at how it all went.

“I mean, they had nothing to lose,” he said.