They Work It Out With Role-Playing

It figures that a team that plays in the capital of plastic surgery, in the midst of a Hollywood culture that airbrushes or digitally alters what can’t be fixed with a scalpel, would owe some of its success to transformations.

In the Lakers’ case, however, the important change has been the willingness of several players to go from the limelight to the background. And now they’re starting to flourish in those roles.

Rick Fox, he of the screen-ready face, has taken on the thankless duties of a key grip. Robert Horry, the Will Smith look-alike, has played a part more suited for Alfonso Ribeiro.

Both Fox and Horry, like Brian Shaw and Horace Grant, are players who were double-figure scorers at one point in their careers and now are content to make more subtle contributions for a championship-caliber team.

The scoring firepower of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant would not have been enough to give the Lakers a three-games-to-none lead over the Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference semifinals if it had not been backed up by the support of the role players.

One of the problems of the Laker teams a few years ago was that the players they asked to be role players didn’t necessarily excel at one particular aspect of the game. Guys such as Fox and Horry weren’t pure shooters or rebounding maniacs or defensive stoppers.

But the benefit of keeping teams together for a period of years is that the players grow to understand how to complement one another. Horry, Fox, O’Neal, Bryant and Derek Fisher have been in L.A. since the 1996-97 season. They play well with each other, off each other and they have grown comfortable with their assigned tasks. And the recent additions have been veterans who were parts of winning teams, such as Grant and Ron Harper.

Coach Phil Jackson agrees with the role player concept, if not necessarily the terminology.

“What any team has to do well is to have role players--if they call them role players,” Jackson said. “Everybody has a role, but we tend to say that the guys that are either bench players or complementary players are role players. Even Shaq is a role player for us.”

Sure. Shaq’s role is to be the most dominant player in the NBA. Like Tom Hanks, he gets all the good parts.

But Fox has better range. His acting parts have included a hot-shot college basketball star and a convict. He averaged 15 points a game in his last season as a Boston Celtic and 12 points his first year with the Lakers, but by last season his defense earned him important minutes at the expense of scorer Glen Rice. In this series, his play against King forward Peja Stojakovic has been one of the most important story lines.

“I’ve always prided myself on defense,” Fox said. “From a recognition standpoint, that hasn’t really been there and I haven’t really concerned myself with that. That’s kind of the reason I’ve stayed in the league so long. Having an understanding, having a great background in defense from my coaches in college and high school.

“Right now, just playing a pivotal role in a matchup against Stojakovic that has given us some success [is satisfying]. Offense is not premium on my mind right now. We don’t need my scoring. I still have to be a threat--which I will be--but my just deserts could come in the next round. As for right now, I have a duty to do defensively that’s more important.”

The Lakers have always asked more of Horry than his body is suited for. Horry played small forward for his first five seasons in the league, but the Lakers have asked him to play power forward. But last season Jackson found Horry could be effective as a defensive disrupter with his long arms, and he also has not punished Horry for letting the occasional three-point shot fly.

A former starter, Horry backed up A.C. Green last season and Horace Grant this year.

What Horry had to learn about coming off the bench is, “When you get out there and you’re having a good game, it’s going to be a while before you get at it again because you’re going to have to sit a long time,” Horry said. “It took some time and some mental preparation.

Fisher’s adjustments have brought a little more immediate rewards. Point guards usually have the ball in their hands every time down the court and are responsible for initiating the offense. In the triangle offense run by the Lakers, the priority is placed on team passing, not one individual’s dribbling. Fisher has adapted by becoming an adept spot-up shooter, filling the role once played by guys such as Jim Paxson, Craig Hodges and Steve Kerr in Chicago. His scoring average in the 20 games after he returned from off-season foot surgery was 11.5 points per game, almost double his career average.

“You have to be able to catch and shoot the basketball,” Fisher said of the triangle offense. “I worked on that so much, even before I had my surgery. I feel good about it now.”

For a point guard, “It’s actually more sacrifice,” Fisher said. “You don’t handle the ball as much, you don’t dribble the ball as much. Everybody touches the ball. So you feel good about that. You actually get more shots than the traditional point guard.”

That doesn’t mean Fisher has abandoned his usual duties of playing aggressive defense on opposing point guards and drawing charges. His return March 13 helped spark the restoration of the Lakers’ championship defensive effort from last season.

“We understand winning the championship is about defense,” Fox said. “You watched the Baltimore Ravens do it this year in football. We knew what it took for us to do it last year. It was done defensively. It was nice to go out and score the points and have the exciting plays offensively, but defense is going to win it.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: ja.adande@latimes.com.