Skip the Trip North, This Series Is Over

Two California teams still playing indoor basketball in the middle of May, and the question comes up: Shouldn’t they doing their part to save energy?

Sure they should.

On Tuesday night, in the second game of their second-round playoff series, the Lakers and Sacramento Kings showed exactly how they can.

Skip the flight to Sacramento this weekend for Games 3 and 4. A waste of fuel.

Keep the barn doors closed and lights dark at Arco Arena. A waste of power.

Cancel the rest of this series. It’s over.

Send the Lakers directly to San Antonio for the Western Conference finals, where they are clearly headed anyway after defeating the Kings, 96-90, at a brightly lit Staples Center. The hotshots from Sacramento came to town Sunday all loose and lovable and, some thought, lethal.

They left late Tuesday, two losses later, as little more than a rolling blackout.

With 39 seconds remaining, a chanting Staples Center crowd figured it out.

Sweep! Sweep! Sweep!

Based on last year’s playoffs, one might assume that the Lakers will have trouble even winning one game amid the loud and demonstrative crowd at Arco, where they were swept in two games last April.

But five games and five wins into the 2001 playoffs, even the dimmest of bulbs must realize this is not last year.

After torching each other during the regular season, the Lakers will not likely be rattled by somebody else burning their uniform.

After all their sniping during the regular season, they probably won’t even hear somebody else is ringing a cowbell.

“Last year, nobody knew what to expect up there, and it was crazy,” Kobe Bryant said. “This year, we’re more prepared mentally.”

Not to mention, this Kings team officially has no clue how to stop Shaquille O’Neal, whose 43 points and 20 rebounds Tuesday burned brightly enough for one more bad energy metaphor.

It was the first consecutive 40-20 performance in NBA playoff history. After failing with double teams and triple teams and fouls, the Kings apparently have but one remaining option.

It involves, if one is to infer properly from Chris Webber’s postgame musings, beating the man to a pulp.

“We have to realize, this is not a church league, this is not some friendly game,” said Webber, who missed 17 of 26 shots. “We have to take the fight to them. Get your punch in and run, get your punch in and run.”

Funny he mention church league, because the Lakers box score looked like one, what with O’Neal and Bryant (27 points) combining to score 73% of the Laker points while the bench contributed one Robert Horry free throw.

This, after O’Neal and Bryant scored 68% of the team’s points in Game 1.

There is a theory in other NBA towns that the Lakers will win another championship simply because they have the two best players in the game.

People in these parts, having seen how an unbalanced attack can lead to toppling dizzy spells, don’t buy that argument.

“This series they’re allowing the strengths of our team to play and that’s fine,” said Phil Jackson “[But] we do have to have some help when we go on the road, it’s going to be necessary.”

Yet the thing about Tuesday was, when they absolutely needed that help, it was there.

First, with defense.

With the score tied 43-all at the beginning of the third quarter, the Lakers held the Kings without a basket for nearly four minutes, and gave up only two field goals for the first eight minutes.

Rick Fox again stalled Predrag Stojakovic throughout the game, holding him to seven-of-18 shooting with no assists. Horace Grant and Robert Horry forced Webber outside.

“We didn’t have that same intensity at the start of the second half and they did,” said the Kings’ Bobby Jackson.

Then there was rebounding.

The Lakers outrebounded the Kings, 51-42, while Fox grabbed more rebounds (10) than anyone in the Kings’ starting lineup.

“We are executing extremely well,” Bryant acknowledged. “Our confidence is extremely high.”

The only thing left for the Lakers to figure as they head to Sacramento is, what do they do with that standing ovation given a certain veteran guard with 10:02 left in Tuesday’s game.

Yep, Ron Harper is back, making his first appearance in three months after knee surgery. Yes, he was the steadying force in last year’s playoff run.

But even Jackson acknowledged: “I don’t want to mess around with the chemistry we have.”

Nor should he. Although Harper is a Jackson favorite, he should be used carefully, unobtrusively.

Even at this early point of the postseason, with the Kings reeling and the Spurs hurting with the loss of difference-maker Derek Anderson, perhaps the only thing that can beat the Lakers is the Lakers.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com