Lakers Buy Easy Win With Only a Quarter

It is a dangerous practice, making assumptions the Lakers have come upon their will to play defense and therefore to defend their championship in body and spirit.

But, there they were on Sunday night, having played the day before, having traveled the night before, having X-rayed Kobe Bryant’s ankle practically as the pre-game introductions were going on, all of those things leaning against them, whipping the Golden State Warriors anyway.

If that doesn’t seem like much, that’s because it’s not, really. The Warriors were barely out there.

If they’re going to decide to get serious about this repeat thing, however, it’s going to have to start somewhere.

The Lakers won, 110-95, at Staples Center, where they scored 43 first-quarter points and basically took the rest of the night off, which was plenty, still. At least they played a quarter. Golden State forward Antawn Jamison, who scored 51 points the last time they played, didn’t score a point this time.

Along with a growing sense that maybe it’s turning a little for them, the Lakers have six wins in seven games and 11 wins in 14.

“The urgency,” Laker forward Rick Fox said, “is upon us. There’s still time left in this season to start playing like champions.”

Their record is 39-19, with 24 games left. Home-court advantage is still out there. So, if it strokes them a little to take a 30-point lead in the first 12 minutes, to have Shaquille O’Neal score 26 points in only 31 minutes, to rest Bryant after 22 points and 31 minutes, then a win over Golden State is more than that. Bryant’s X-rays were negative.

“It’s been a while,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said.

What must pull at Jackson most is the ridiculous defeats taken by this team, and the Warriors had that potential.

The Lakers’ lone defeat in their past seven games was the debacle Wednesday night in Denver. Afterward, Jackson hefted a large bowl of popcorn and hurled it into a wall, leaving the locker room floor littered with snacks and downcast eyes. The Lakers hadn’t much seen that side of Jackson and won’t forget it for a while.

“We haven’t had a whole lot of big wins this year,” said Fox, who had 14 points in 27 minutes. “We would like to think that we could put a team like this away more often. There is always a lot of talk in the locker room about how we can’t beat anybody, so this is nice.”

Visibly slower and less mobile, Bryant still scored 10 points in the first quarter. O’Neal had 11. Fox and Horace Grant each scored eight. Brian Shaw had six. The Lakers made 15 of 24 shots in the quarter. They had 19 rebounds, to Golden State’s five. They had nine assists. They made all 11 free-throw attempts.

They scored 43 points in a quarter one other time, a fourth quarter against the Clippers on Nov. 5.

“We’re on the right track,” Bryant said. “We did a good job defensively, and we hit our shots on the offensive end. If we look at the upcoming schedule, we know we need to start developing a rhythm. We’ll even start playing better when we get [Ron] Harper and [Derek] Fisher back.”

There is no real timetable on either injured guard, though Fisher is to have a bone scan Thursday.

“It was fun to sit back, to watch the game, have fun,” said Bryant, literally losing sleep because of the pain in his ankles. “We hadn’t had a game like this in a while. It’s especially good for the coaching staff. It calms their nerves a little bit.”

Beyond the first quarter and the blowout win, the curiosity was Jamison.

In 28 minutes, Jamison missed nine field-goal attempts, a 51-point swing from last time.

Jackson had promised to double-team Jamison, but never did. Didn’t have to.

“He didn’t have the same energy he played with before,” Jackson said. “We just played him straight up most of the time. I told Horace he’d done pretty good against him. He’d held him to 25 a game.”

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GETTING THE RUNAROUND

Mike Penberthy did not make it to the Laker shoot-around Sunday, when most of downtown was blocked off by the L.A. Marathon. D6

A BAD DAY AT WORK

Angered by the Clippers’ lack of effort, Coach Alvin Gentry ended Sunday’s practice because he thought it was a waste of his staff’s time. D6