Phil's Kick Start

By TIM BROWN

Sept. 28, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Phil Jackson recently broke his big toe protecting his three-legged dog, proof again that in Jackson’s cosmos things are best left to solve themselves.

Seems a neighbor dog in Montana took a liking to Jackson’s lovable, vulnerable Bo, and while the first kick neither halted the assignation nor shattered the owner’s toe, the next accomplished both.

“But you don’t want to write about that,” Jackson said, smiling.

Having coaxed the Lakers to consecutive championships, having pushed them through all manners of feud and injury and regular-season tedium without once planting a single toe on a single rump, Jackson should have known, of course.

When last we left the Lakers, they already had begun talk of a dynasty, Kobe Bryant was Shaquille O’Neal’s idol, O’Neal joked about naming his next son Sha-Kobe, and Bryant repeatedly referred to O’Neal as the NBA’s dominant player.

All done without the aid of a well-aimed garden hose.

“We’ve always said you don’t have to like the guy you’re on the court with, but you have to respect him,” Jackson said. “That’s the important part. I think those two guys really gained a great amount of respect for each other last year. That’s what keeps your professional level of expertise really high. That, I think, was solidified. I feel comfortable believing they’ve got the maturity now to do that.”

After their 15-1 playoff jag, O’Neal got the Finals MVP trophy, Bryant caressed the championship trophy, and everyone danced together at Figueroa and 11th, all a few weeks after Jackson was scolded for seemingly doing nothing while the Lakers appeared to disintegrate.

While Bo is one thing, the Lakers appear to be quite another. So when Jackson sat down Thursday afternoon with a handful of writers, his calm was back, his toe was healed and his soul patch was gone, all signs of fall and a new basketball season.

He said he liked what General Manager Mitch Kupchak had done-adding veterans Mitch Richmond, Samaki Walker and Lindsey Hunter-to a core that appeared to grow together last April, May and June, when the Lakers won 23 of their final 24 games.

He said the two critical elements of training camp, which starts Saturday, were O’Neal’s conditioning and Richmond’s knees.

And he said he hoped the Lakers remembered what it was like to feel invincible, to have defended their title with character and passion.

“It’s human nature to relax,” Jackson said. “It’s hard to keep that hard veneer, to be a warrior every single night you walk onto the floor. I think we learned a lot of lessons about ourselves, about being patient with ourselves. There’s going to be nights when a younger, quicker team could come in and embarrass us. But we know we can rally to do what we know has to get done. The three-peat, in my experience, has always been a down year. I don’t think that naturally has to be this year.”

Jackson twice won three consecutive titles with the Chicago Bulls. He averaged 59.5 regular-season wins in the third seasons, 67.2 in the first and second.

“I think we’ll get off to a slow start,” Jackson said. “I don’t think we’ll feel as panicked about it as we did last year. I kept telling them I expected that last year, and then they got upset about it and got themselves going. What we want is to find some momentum during the season that builds to what you have to have in this game, and that’s the team play that we demonstrated at the very end.”

O’Neal, who had toe surgery, should be sound by the start of the regular season-Oct. 30, when the Lakers host the Portland Trail Blazers-but point guard Derek Fisher will not be. He’s aiming for a return from foot surgery-his second in less than a year-in November. The Lakers figure December. And there will be the usual triangle learning curve with the newcomers, complicated perhaps by rules that will allow zone defenses.

When O’Neal was healthy and motivated in the second half of last season and into the postseason, he was the best player in the league. When Fisher returned from injury in March, the Lakers became the best team in the league.

“We could get back something better from Shaq because he’s not going to have the pounding practices in the early part of the season,” Jackson said. “Yet, he’s going to get himself in shape....

“We don’t want to have what happened to us last year, when people thought we were [vulnerable] to being beaten. We have to bring our game to a certain level to perform. We want to carry that performance level in a pretty high place. For us to do that, Shaq has to be in good shape. We’re not going to say he has to be in good shape Nov. 1, but we’d like him to be rolling some time at the end of November.”

The Lakers will play the Golden State Warriors in an exhibition game Oct. 16 at Centennial Garden Arena in Bakersfield. All net proceeds from ticket sales will go toward the relief efforts following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. ... The Lakers announced they have signed Dennis Scott and Paul Shirley.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Lakers

Key dates:

Saturday Training camp opens in Honolulu

Oct. 7 First preseason game against Golden State in Honolulu

Oct. 29 Rosters set for season

Oct. 30 Season opens against Portland at Staples Center

Clippers

Key dates:

Tuesday Training camp opens in Palm Desert

Oct. 10 First preseason game at Seattle

Oct. 29 Rosters set for season