O’Neal’s Winner Is Not Too Late

Through the din of the inflamed Vancouver Grizzly players, staff and various front-office personnel, of hysterical Laker fans, and of converging referees, the Lakers themselves shrugged, accepted their good fortune, thanked Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Leon Wood, and just moved on.

It was O’Neal who rebounded Robert Horry’s miss and banked in the final shot, after overtime expired, even as Ike Austin’s right hand raked him across the face. Yeah, after overtime expired.

It was Bryant who had his first triple-double--26 points, 11 rebounds, a season-high 11 assists--three days after Magic Johnson challenged him to do it.

And it was Wood, a Cal State Fullerton player turned NBA referee, who dramatically counted O’Neal’s shot and so clinched the Lakers’ 113-112 overtime victory Monday night at Staples Center.

“That’s not the way that I like to win a basketball game, I’ll tell you that,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said.

The Lakers missed yet another chance to bomb an overmatched opponent with yet another uninspired second half, but they’ll deal with that today. They stopped playing defense. They leaped frantically at every ball fake. They were outrebounded, 18-7, in the third quarter.

This time, the price was not a defeat--as it appeared it might be at several junctures--but an additional five minutes of basketball, a little more sweat and a few thank-you-Lords. The Lakers, 21-1 against the Grizzlies, were an unusual continuation call from losing to the Clippers and the Grizzlies in the same miserable week.

“I’m mad, I’m [ticked] off,” Grizzly Coach Sidney Lowe said. “My players played their hearts out. The did everything that I asked them to do. They won the ballgame. We won the ballgame and it was basically taken from us.

“Let the team that deserved to win win the ballgame, as opposed to the team that everyone thought should win, even the officials.”

The last seconds went like this:

Austin, who has made less than 37% of his shots this season, made a 16-footer from the right corner to give the Grizzlies a 112-111 lead with eight seconds to play in overtime. The Grizzlies danced back to their huddle.

After a timeout, the Lakers got the ball to Bryant, who passed to Horry on the left wing. Horry’s shot was long, and the rebound skipped over the rim. O’Neal took the rebound over Austin and, after the buzzer sounded, banked in an eight-footer.

Wood whistled the foul on Austin with, he estimated, four-tenths of a second remaining. O’Neal was allowed continuation on the play, as he would have been at any other time. Had he not made the shot, he would have been awarded two free throws. As it was, he missed the one he was given, with those four-tenths showing on the clock, and with the Grizzlies barely containing their anger.

“That was a terrible, terrible, terrible call by three cowards. You could see it was wrong,” Grizzly forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim said. “A terrible call. I can’t use anything but gutless and coward.”

O’Neal was unavailable for comment.

“I didn’t know if Shaq got the ball off in time,” Bryant said. “But I saw Leon [Wood, the referee] signal the basket good, so I knew then the game was pretty much over with.”

Asked if he believed it was a home-court call, Bryant looked surprised and said, “Does it matter? I don’t think so. The important thing is that we got the call and the game was over with.”

Before that, and before Abdur-Rahim’s short jumper at the end of regulation forced the overtime, the game was remarkable for the taut byplay between Bryant and O’Neal. Bryant repeatedly set up O’Neal for easy shots, among them a fast-break pass off the backboard. O’Neal returned the favor.

They appear to be playing together in the name of proving they can.

“I guess it’s saying he can do that when he needs to,” Horry said of Bryant’s most expansive game. “If he goes out and applies himself like he should, he’s a good player now. Until he’s able to make the people around him better, that’s when he’s going to become a great player.”

Johnson, whose 138 triple-doubles are an NBA record, said as much Friday, when he met with O’Neal and Bryant to quell the feud between the superstars.

“You can get your points whenever you want,” Bryant said Johnson told him. “See if you can’t get a triple-double.”

At halftime, Bryant had seven assists. He took his 10th rebound midway through the fourth quarter.

“After this past week I wanted to prove to people that I can do more things besides scoring with the ball,” Bryant said. “Everybody has seen the points now and I want to emphasize I can do more things.”

LAKERS’ LEADING SCORER MONDAY:

Shaquille O’Neal

31 points

RECORD WHEN O’NEAL LEADS TEAM IN SCORING:

8-8

RECORD WHEN BRYANT LEADS TEAM IN SCORING:

15-4

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INDIANA 89

CLIPPERS 74

Jalen Rose scored 20 points and the Pacers used tough defense to win. D4

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LEAVING HIM IN STITCHES

New York’s Marcus Camby accidentally head-butts own coach in Knick victory. D5