Lakers Find Two Stars Better Than Nets’ One

The foe was someone else, and something else: Stephon Marbury putting up three-point shots that would have brushed NBA championship banners if the New Jersey Nets had any.

Very close to the end, though, Kobe Bryant sat under the backboard, arms crossed, smirk drawn, eyes wild.

And it was Shaquille O’Neal who grasped Bryant under the arms, pulled him to his feet, turned him around, and nudged him to the free-throw line. If he had brushed off the back of Bryant’s pants, it would not have seemed so strange after the Lakers’ 113-110 overtime victory.

“It’s going to have to be,” Laker forward Rick Fox said of the pair. “It’s comforting because it’s worked before. It’s nothing that can’t be done.”

With the Laker stars on the floor together for the first time in seven games, Bryant’s game-winner with less than five seconds left and O’Neal’s return to the lineup adequately filled the dramatic pauses between Marbury’s career-high 50 points at Continental Airlines Arena.

As a semi-hysterical crowd rose every time Marbury pulled up, O’Neal had 32 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks in his first game in 18 days. Bryant had 38 points and eight rebounds. O’Neal had been recuperating from a strained right arch that benched him for six games.

Despite doctors’ orders to ease O’Neal back into the season, Laker Coach Phil Jackson rode his big man for 43 minutes. O’Neal didn’t seem to mind and the Lakers required every one of them--in his 42nd minute, O’Neal blocked a running shot by Marbury that otherwise might have given the Nets a four-point lead with less than a minute left.

The Lakers then scored the final five points, two on Tyronn Lue’s fast-break layup over Keith Van Horn and three on Bryant’s hanging layup and subsequent free throw with 4.8 seconds left. Marbury missed a 33-footer at the buzzer that would have tied it.

“I feel good enough to do what I do,” O’Neal said. “Whether I am injured or tired, I will always get my average. My legs were feeling pretty good. I was just anxious to get back and play.”

O’Neal is not without pain. He said the arch was sore and, like Bryant’s shoulder, he believes it will be for the rest of the season.

“I’ll just suck it up for the rest of the year,” O’Neal said.

In some ways energized by his time off, O’Neal made 10 of 18 field-goal attempts and 12 of 24 free throws.

“It didn’t surprise me,” forward Horace Grant said. “In the second half of the season, he’s got something to prove to a lot of people, that he’s the same guy he was last year.”

The Lakers would appear to face the same daunting task, on the court and in their psyches.

Bryant, as usual, was game. He missed a jumper from the top of the key at the end of regulation, and so the Lakers, having blown a 12-point lead with little more than four minutes left and a six-point lead with less than a minute, stumbled into the overtime.

But, with 12 seconds left in the overtime, the score tied, 110-110, Bryant stood high on the left wing, facing Lucious Harris. He dribbled around Harris, spun past Aaron Williams and drove down the lane. He soared over Kenyon Martin, finally flipping the ball toward the basket, taking the foul from Martin as the shot dropped through.

Not 30 feet away, Net Coach Byron Scott, the former Laker, folded his arms, just as Bryant did.

Having already missed the jumper at the end of regulation, Bryant looked at Scott and said, “I ain’t going to miss two game-winners in a row, B.”

Scott didn’t laugh.

“We gave them everything we had tonight,” Marbury said.

Before it began, or began anew, O’Neal stood at midcourt.

Nobody else was out there. Only Shaq, waiting.

It would be his first game since Jan. 26, 18 days of injury and Orlando Sentinel columnist inquiries--arch questions and arch enemies.

Jackson’s challenge was to integrate the up-tempo offense and energetic defense of the Shaq-less Lakers with the power of the Shaq-ful Lakers. Across the Hudson River from the town that introduced America to the argument the Knicks were a better team when Patrick Ewing was injured, the Lakers were not so delusional.

“I like his dominance,” Jackson said. “I like the fact there’s a place in the game where he’s the most dominant player every time he goes into a ballgame. The team gets stagnant because they want to throw the ball in and they over-exaggerate at times. I think we made a point today of saying, ‘It’s great to get the ball in there, we want to get it in there [about] 40 times a game, a high number, but we don’t want to make our offense stagnant.’ ”

They scored with the Nets, and then some. Ultimately, Marbury was unable to drive the Nets solo, and O’Neal had Bryant.

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