Lakers Enjoy Fast-Feud Diet

At the conclusion of their most trying week, the Lakers played basketball.

They slapped each other’s hands when it went right, and nodded when it didn’t.

It wasn’t great basketball, though Shaquille O’Neal was. Kobe Bryant was sometimes flashy but mostly efficient. He looked for O’Neal early rather than his own shot, and then the shots came too, in a flood.

The Lakers defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, 101-98, Friday night at Staples Center, and for the first time in several days, nobody bickered, everybody shared, and O’Neal and Bryant both smiled, though not necessarily at the same time.

“I wanted to get him some touches, get him the ball, get him going in the offense,” Bryant said of O’Neal, who scored 34 points and had a season-high 23 rebounds. “We can’t have the big fella being unhappy. I want to win. He wants to win.”

Bryant scored 32 points, 25 in the second half.

“We’ll just play and stay focused,” he said. “We’re united as a team, no matter what people say.”

The Cavaliers were the sideshow, Lamond Murray in his facemask, the rest in their various headgear, the fans looking past them to the vaguest signs of truce between Shaq and Kobe, who spent the week publicly feuding.

“Looking at the week we just had, we dealt with a lot of things on and off the floor and hopefully we improved in both areas,” Laker forward Rick Fox said. “It can be the quietest place for us, out on the floor.”

There was a small toast to detente in the opening minutes, when Bryant, at the free-throw line, flipped a pass to O’Neal, in the post.

O’Neal missed the shot, but it didn’t seem to matter to anyone in a crowd unusually sedate even for Staples Center. If they feared there might never be another exchange--personal or professional--between the two, the anxiety passed with that pass.

“I take my hat off to Shaq and Kobe for playing well with one another tonight,” said Isaiah Rider who scored 12 points.

At the conclusion of the first quarter, Bryant actually had the 24-second clock expire as he stood at the top of the key, waiting for O’Neal to free himself from a couple of Cavaliers.

O’Neal had eight rebounds and 10 points in the first quarter and seven rebounds and eight points in the second. Bryant took six shots in the first half.

“He found rhythm in the offense,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said of Bryant. “He set the table for some of the other players. He did a nice job of orienting our offense, getting into what we try to do, which was to make them collapse defensively around Shaq, so we would have the opportunity for shots later on.”

O’Neal was 13 of 19 from the field, nine of 14 in the first half.

“He was very much a presence inside,” Jackson said. “He took care of the business he had to take care of.”

The curiosity of O’Neal and Bryant did not belong solely to a town and its fans.

“I’m not interested in ‘solving,’ ” Jackson said before the game. “I’m interested in players playing team basketball. That’s the only thing that’s an issue. The issue is when players stand above the team or [believing] their own individual performance is rewarded financially. They have to drop that and move into doing the best they can for the team. Everybody. Regardless of their stature. And then it becomes not a personal game but a group effort. That’s what we have to emphasize.”

Before the game, Bryant, who spent 72 hours in the eye of the crisis, seemed relieved to be on the verge of playing again.

“You know what? This is the way I’m thinking right now,” Bryant said. “All we want to do is go out there and beat the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight. And to win every basketball game we possibly can, whether it’s in a sandbox, a schoolyard, wherever it is. That’s why we’re here.

“The only purpose is winning. That’s why I push myself to exhaustion every day. To win. No matter what it is. No matter who we play. We have to win, beat people, dominate people. That’s where I get my biggest joy.”

The Lakers could not stop Murray in the first quarter, when he scored 19 points. Then he missed all three of his second-quarter shots and wasn’t an offensive factor after that, finishing with 25.

Still, the Cavaliers, losers of nine of 11 coming in, stayed reasonably close to the Lakers.

Rider scored on three consecutive possessions, and four of five, to give the Lakers an 83-74 advantage. But the Cavaliers stayed around long enough to hack Shaq, which they did. O’Neal made five of 10 free throws at the end of the fourth quarter, eight of 16 for the game.

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CLIPPERS: 95

MINNESOTA: 89

The Clippers played well enough to win but failed to execute in the final minutes. Peeler and Garnett lead Timberwolves. D6

MAGIC TOUCH

Magic Johnson, who had a similar situation with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, says O’Neal and Bryant will find a way to work things out. D7

TAKING LOW ROAD

The Raptors and Celtics each score nine points in the third quarter to tie a record for futility, but at least Toronto comes a way with a victory. D7