Uh-Oh, Shaq’s Hot at Line

Where there was conflict, there is symmetry, and there is recognition, and there is simplicity.

Three games in, the Lakers have played so-so basketball--so-so for them--and they have won all three, in large part because Shaquille O’Neal is so large, and because Kobe Bryant chooses to be too.

The Lakers defeated the Phoenix Suns, 117-94, on Friday night at Staples Center, and so are early into the fast start none of them figured was possible, considering their various off-season surgical procedures, the handful of new faces, and the still-developing relationship between O’Neal and Bryant.

O’Neal scored 36 points with a show of his greatest hits, from dunks to turn-arounds to jump hooks, took 13 rebounds and blocked six shots. He made 16 of 18 free-throw attempts, and is 34 for 48 for the season, a respectable 70.8%. He left the game with 5:05 remaining and the Lakers ahead, 102-83.

Where there wasn’t O’Neal, there was Bryant, filling in the seams with jumpers and slashing drives to the basket. He scored 24 points, some hanging, some slicing, some flipping. Bryant, who scored 29 points in the opener and 39 Thursday in Utah, saw what everyone saw against the Suns, a mismatch of O’Neal-like proportions on the inside, and he had seven assists by halftime, nine for the game.

“They’re playing off each other well,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “They’re playing well while the other is on the bench.”

So, it has appeared fairly easy, these three victories, all over Western Conference playoff qualifiers from last season.

“Too early,” Jackson said. “We still have the road to deal with.”

Thirty minutes before the game, Jackson gave the Lakers their strategy. “We must pound the ball inside and abuse those guys,” Bryant recalled him saying.

Among the images, the two Jakes--Tsakalidis, the reserve, and Voskuhl, the starter--mouths open, eyes closed, tumbling backward. And Rodney Rogers, more game, but with the same general posture, in semi-retreat, full-protection mode. Together, those three scored 12 points in 54 minutes. O’Neal scored his in 34.

“We’re just trying to have some fun out there,” he said.

It’s more fun when the free throws are falling, the likelihood of which is why Phoenix Coach Scott Skiles called for his men to go straight-up on Shaq.

“He figured I’d miss my free throws,” O’Neal said of his former teammate.

O’Neal made all nine of his free-throw attempts in the first half, celebrating one by running the length of the court with elongated strides, his shoulders hunched, his eyes wide. The crowd that cheered each free throw chuckled at the sight of Shaq, so clearly pleased that his free throws would fall with such touch.

“He hurt us,” Skiles said. “Obviously. An understatement.”

O’Neal, who hit Portland for 29 and Utah for 31, put nearly every Sun big man in foul trouble.

When he did, it opened up the inside for Bryant, and the outside for the rest. Lindsey Hunter, proving to be adept at finding his jumper, scored 13 points. Devean George added 11 in 21 minutes.

Afterward, O’Neal walked with a limp. He said his right big toe was stiff, and seemed unconcerned, but was pleased Jackson canceled today’s practice.

“I need it,” he said.

The Lakers reached halftime with a 54-46 lead, the Suns that close because of nine Laker turnovers, because Penny Hardaway, Shawn Marion and Stephon Marbury each scored in double figures, and because their seven offensive rebounds afforded them 48 field-goal attempts, 11 more than the Lakers had.

O’Neal had 23 points by halftime, 30 by the third quarter, and eventually it became too much for the Suns.

Marbury and Hardaway combined for 46 points. Marbury the Sun had 21 of them, a big improvement for the Lakers over Marbury the Net. Last season, while playing for New Jersey, Marbury scored 83 points in two games, including 50 on Feb. 13 in East Rutherford.

The Lakers have won 20 of 24 games from the Suns, whose off-season jettisoning of Jason Kidd and Clifford Robinson left some wondering if the team had dealt itself out of the playoffs.