Same Old Jazz for the Lakers

The three-peat, if there is to be one, will have to go through places such as these, where their opponent is comfortable with his game, and the shots won’t fall and the bench isn’t exactly helping.

And then the place gets loud, and Shaquille O’Neal’s jaw is hanging a little, and this other team, so clearly not as capable, starts to believe.

There’ll be places like these again, and so maybe it’s something for the Lakers to beat the Utah Jazz, 105-101, Thursday night at the Delta Center, where Kobe Bryant scored 39 points, 27 of them in the second half, and O’Neal scored 31 despite fouling out.

Still, 80 games and almost six months from anything really meaningful, the Lakers pushed back the aging Jazz. The Lakers scored their final seven points from the free-throw line, and Bryant had a momentous block of a late, running attempt by Karl Malone, and Lindsey Hunter found his three-point stroke not long after Phil Jackson wondered if he would.

“We still competed and had a chance to win, but it has to be perfect,” Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan said. “Everything has to be perfect.”

That, pretty much, was O’Neal’s point in a rather muted post-game locker room, where most of the attention was on a baseball game on a television hanging from the ceiling. The Lakers are 2-0, O’Neal and Bryant are fairly healthy--Bryant suffered a slight sprain of his left ankle--and the newcomers are providing depth, if not charisma, exactly, yet.

O’Neal fouled out with 1:47 remaining, not long after his flagrant foul nearly squashed John Crotty, and with the Lakers ahead, 98-91. He was displeased with the referees, which became Crotty’s misfortune.

“Five-on-five, eight-on-five, it doesn’t matter, we’re going to come every night,” O’Neal said, referencing the alleged allegiance of the three referees. “That’s the only way teams like that are going to keep up with us, by getting help.”

O’Neal sighed at the memory of it, at the new defensive rules he hates, at the violence inflicted on--and by--him.

“The game is getting ugly,” he said. “I’m glad I ain’t going to be around long. It’s an [ugly] game to watch, and an [ugly] game to play. Just awful.”

There was lots of ugly, and it might take the Lakers some time to get the smell from their clothing. But, it was the Jazz which lost its second consecutive game to start the season, both of them at home, and Malone didn’t play well in either. Near the end, in fact, with the final seconds falling away, Malone stood over Bryant, unwilling to foul because, as he screamed at Donyell Marshall, “I have five fouls!”

The game might have ended with the Lakers ahead by two points, Bryant holding the basketball and Malone having preserved his final foul, except Marshall swiped at Bryant, who made his final two free throws for the four-point victory.

So, an uneven win on the first day of November wouldn’t bother anyone by the time the charter left for Los Angeles.

Jackson strode from the locker room, sipped from a paper cup and, earnestly, said, “Does it always have to be that ugly when we play here? Is it the nature of the game to have to be so contentious?”

They were rhetorical questions.

What was important was another big offensive game from Bryant, who scored 20 points in the third quarter, and O’Neal. And, with the Jazz nudging closer to the Lakers, Hunter hit a three for a 93-86 lead, then another on the next possession for a 96-87 lead.

On the night guard Brian Shaw sat at home, wondering about the waiver wire, wondering about his pay cut, Hunter and Mitch Richmond were a combined four for 18 from the field, making an eloquent point about Shaw’s worth. But Hunter made two shots that stung the Jazz, who spent most of their defensive energy running at O’Neal and Bryant.

During a timeout moments before, Jackson looked at Hunter and said, “Hey, can you hit the shot?”

“Yeah.”

He made two. “That’s Phil for you, you know?” Hunter said.

Bryant, who shortly thereafter rejected Malone’s runner in the lane, said he figured Hunter would be left alone.

“He knows he can make those shots,” Bryant said. “We talked about it in the time out. I told him he was going to play H-O-R-S-E in those last two minutes.”

Then Bryant shrugged. Just a game. Just a win. And on they go.