Unfortunately for Kings, O’Neal Isn’t Finished

Like the remnants of a picnic attended by a Grizzly bear, the Kings’ plans lay scattered about them.

And that wasn’t the worst of it, either. Shaquille O’Neal mauled them, 44 points, 21 rebounds and seven blocked shots’ worth Sunday, but that’s not their real problem.

The real problem is, the Kings are playing the Lakers again Tuesday and O’Neal will be back for dessert.

“I don’t think you can fight them on even terms with Shaq--and that’s a compliment,” the Kings’ Chris Webber said. “That’s not a bash. Any time you’ve got that guy in the middle, it’s a mismatch . . .

“Today it was just the big fella inside. Forty-four and 21, all you can say about that really is . . . damn.”

The Kings were actually planning to take it to O’Neal on Sunday, hoping to keep him occupied or get him in foul trouble.

Let’s just say it wasn’t an assignment all 12 of them volunteered for. It fell to their largest players, Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard.

Of course, each gives up at least 50 pounds to O’Neal, who looks upon them less as defenders, more as appetizers.

Nevertheless, the plan worked. O’Neal picked up two fouls in the first six minutes and Coach Phil Jackson sat him down.

Usual practice is to keep a player with two fouls out until the second quarter, but you know Jackson, he has his own ideas. O’Neal was back on the floor with 3:50 left in the period and the Kings went back at him.

They were successful too, putting foul No. 3 on him . . . with 2:46 left in the game.

In between, the referees gave Shaq the benefit of the doubt on several calls at the defensive end in the second period, illustrating one problem with the take-it-to-him plan: It works better at home than on the road.

Then there was O’Neal’s manly play at the other end. As 11 offensive rebounds suggests, his best move Sunday was missing, knocking any Kings out of the way, retrieving the ball and scoring, while the Kings in question checked to see if they’d sustained serious damage.

Late in the game, O’Neal blew Pollard almost bodily off the court, got the ball back and dunked. Sacramento Coach Rick Adelman yelled “Loose ball foul!” and “No way!” at the referees.

Nevertheless, Adelman later declined to appeal for help from the referees to save them from the wrath of the Diesel, as had Portland’s Mike Dunleavy.

Noted Adelman: “Did it work for him?

“The first thing is, the guy [O’Neal] is unbelievable. I mean, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s quick, he really has learned to play to his physical talents. He’s learned how to use his skills as well as his bulk.

“But I have to believe there are times he’s knocking us out of there. It’s really hard when he’s coming into you. You’ve gotta give ground, there’s nowhere for you to go. There’s nobody strong enough to hold him out . . . I thought Scot and Vlade, I mean, they tried.”

Divac, the former Laker favorite, still makes his home in Pacific Palisades and commutes while his wife, Ana, and their three children stay here.

Ana wasn’t at the game Sunday. She doesn’t like sitting among Laker fans, who now root against Divac.

“It worked, everything,” Divac said. “But the referees just didn’t follow the rules. If they don’t follow the rules, he’s going to score 50 points every time. He’s unstoppable . . .

“But that’s the playoffs. You’ve got to learn and you’ve got to play through it. I don’t expect that it’s gonna change.”

On one hand, the Lakers were coming off a week’s layoff, which any coach abhors, and won.

On the other, the Kings, who wondered what kind of buzz saw they were running into--”We wanted to find out where we were coming into this series, they were playing so well,” said Adelman--played the Lakers on even terms for three quarters, then, after falling behind by 10 points early in the fourth, chased them to the wire.

“We feel like there are a lot of great teams in the NBA but we feel like we’re the Kings and everybody has to give respect to us, at one time or another,” Webber said.

“We give all respect and due to them for beating us today. Great team, great effort, but we’re the Kings and you’ve got to take us seriously . . .

“We just feel like we’re trying not to be too upset about this loss, remember that we gave a good effort and come back Tuesday.”

However, the Lakers, winners of 12 in a row, may be better now than last season’s champions. Likewise, O’Neal, making free throws better than he ever has, may now be better than a year ago, when he was about to be named the league’s most valuable player.

These days, he doesn’t shy away from contact, fearing fouls.

Ask the Kings.

“We gave him 19 [free throws],’ Adelman said. “Maybe we have to give him 30. But I don’t have a lot of guys.”

The few, the proud, the Kings will be back Tuesday. It’s not like they have a choice.