Lakers Yawn Way to 5-0

At two championships and--they’re pretty sure--counting, this is how the NBA can look to the Lakers:

Another night, another uniform, a quiet arena, a featureless win they won’t remember next week, or even today.

On the end of four days off, the undefeated Lakers defeated the winless-and-looking-it Memphis Grizzlies, 110-86, Friday night at Staples Center, where minimal scoring from Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal still was plenty.

O’Neal scored 20 points in 29 minutes, Bryant a season-low 13 in 33. Neither played the fourth quarter, when Slava Medvedenko scored the last of his career-high 17 points, most while playing at center. Lindsey Hunter scored 16, his fifth consecutive game in double figures.

A 32-17 third quarter finished the 0-6 Grizzlies. The Lakers are 5-0, and 28-1, including the playoffs, since April 1.

“We were never really in it,” Grizzly Coach Sidney Lowe said. “Even when we had the lead, we still weren’t really in it.”

The Grizzlies last led at 6-5.

“A cool game, though,” Bryant said. “We had a chance to rest for the fourth quarter. We had a good time and in the process we end up beating a team.”

No one seemed bothered by the ratty start.

“As long as we wake up when we’re supposed to wake up,” O’Neal said.

Asked if he meant the game or the season, O’Neal said, “Both.”

The intriguing matchup on a dreary November NBA night was Bryant versus Shane Battier, or the benefits of the five-year NBA education versus the four-year Coach K. tutorial.

Bryant, 23, was headed from a Philadelphia suburb to Duke when he chose, instead, to go directly to the draft. In the span of a college education plus a redshirt year, Bryant went to a proven winner and won two NBA titles, indelible experiences, and many millions.

Battier, about two weeks younger, took the route of old-time Dukies, won a national title, finished eighth on the school’s all-time scoring list, and became the face of one of the NBA’s downtrodden franchises.

Half a decade later, they stood across from each other, Battier a little over his head, Bryant a bit off his game, neither one perhaps inspired by a deadly dull atmosphere.

Bryant missed his first five shots in a first quarter that was, for all involved, purely awful. The Lakers missed 13 of 20 field-goal attempts, gave up 31 shots and 10 offensive rebounds to the young and undermanned Grizzlies, and still led by nine points.

Battier, having trouble with NBA rims, defenses and altitudes, arrived shooting 36.4% from the floor, 28.6% from the arc, and left with an 0-for-9 night.

The highlights, loosely speaking, were Battier, in the first quarter, pumping, oh, 10 or 12 times on one possession, only to have the jump shot blocked by Bryant anyway. Bryant, in the third quarter, snapping Battier’s legs at the shins on a stutter move to the basket. Battier, ever game, his head up, trying to lift the unliftable, trying to push the unpushable, trying to run the Grizzlies.

“I was looking forward to seeing what he had,” Bryant said. “Tonight, he was out of sync. It’s tough. It seems like he’s trying to feel out the NBA game a little.”

Overmatched in the best possible circumstance against the Lakers, the Grizzlies were without several injured players, including Michael Dickerson, Nick Anderson and Bryant Reeves. Reeves, though, probably wouldn’t have helped the Grizzlies.

In their history, they had lost 22 of 23 games to the Lakers. In the hours after the Grizzlies’ lone victory, the Lakers fired Coach Del Harris and hired Dennis Rodman, though not to coach.

Those times appear over. A half-hearted effort was plenty against the Grizzlies, who have a new town but the same old deficiencies. Bryant had only seven first-half points, and still the Lakers led by 12.

Bryant and O’Neal combined for 19 second-quarter points. O’Neal had 12 of them, on five-of-six shooting, and two of three free-throw attempts. So the Lakers followed their 19-point first quarter with a 36-point second quarter, their second largest of the season.

The NBA scoring leaders on Friday afternoon were Bryant, at 32.5 points, and O’Neal, at 31.5. Neither approached his average, in part because of the fractured nature of the early game, and ultimately because it was a blowout.