Now He’s Standing Even Taller

The names of the players who have had multiple playoff games of 40-plus points and 20-plus rebounds: Chamberlain, Baylor, Abdul-Jabbar, Olajuwon and the guy leaning against the cinder block wall Monday afternoon at Laker headquarters.

“Niiiiice,” Shaquille O’Neal said, grinning. “That’s niiiice.”

There have been seven such playoff games since 1980, and O’Neal has two of them, the first in Game 2 of last year’s finals, when he had 40 points and 24 rebounds against Indiana, and the latest on Sunday when he had 44 points and 21 rebounds against Sacramento.

The others: Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, David Robinson, and Hakeem Olajuwon twice.

“Numbers-wise, I had a pretty good game,” O’Neal said. “My teammates were looking for me and Sacramento was not doubling. I was taking the high-percentage shots that I take.

“I’m on a mission here still. I’m just trying to play at a high level and do what we did last year.”

The Kings aren’t the only ones dealing with defensive issues. Chris Webber made 12 of 22 shots and scored 34 points.

Then, when the Lakers double-teamed him and forced a pass, too often it was to someone such as Scot Pollard, for a dunk.

“I felt we didn’t play the kind of defense on him individually that I’d like to see us playing on him,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “When it became a situation where we were in foul trouble, we didn’t help and rotate very well.

Horace Grant and Robert Horry held Webber to an average of 21.7 points and 37% shooting in the regular season.

“I’m going to be a little more physical with him, push him out a little bit more and contest his shots a little bit more,” Grant said. “In the regular season he wasn’t making those shots. In the first game, he was.”

Jackson also is leery of the Kings trying to find easier shots and more referees’ calls for Peja Stojakovic, who, guarded by a tenacious Rick Fox, scored 20 tough points in Game 1.

“You know, Peja’s pushing off, Rick’s holding,” Jackson said. “I don’t know where you go back and forth on it. You can call a foul on either of those guys a couple times for pushing off or for holding. The reality is it’s just good play between the two of them. As a consequence, it made for an interesting matchup.”

Jackson’s early Sunday morning observation: “I think it’s interesting the NBA has Milwaukee and Charlotte play at 11:30 [a.m.] and they have us playing at noon, local times. It’s tough to get a good product when these NBA ballplayers are used to getting up about this time in the morning.”

Mike Penberthy’s wife, Wendy, gave birth to the couple’s first child, a boy named Tyler, at 6:30 a.m. Monday. Tyler weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces. . . . Ron Harper, who still hasn’t played in the postseason, practiced Monday, even running sprints with the Lakers who didn’t play much Sunday.