Parting Shot for Lakers

The Lakers stand across from Michael Jordan for perhaps the last time tonight. For the third time around.

Unless, of course, the knee, which recently celebrated its 39th year by submitting to a repair job by local surgeons, heals, and assuming Jordan does not step in a gopher hole striding up the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach this summer. Then there will be next year--and the fourth time.

Unless, of course, the Washington Wizards make the playoffs, which could get him to thinking about what more he could do in shorts and, well, then he’d have accomplished what it was he left his closet of suits for. Who knows then?

If it is becoming difficult to follow the man, perhaps it is because The Times does not employ a Michael Jordan beat writer, not to be confused with a Washington Wizard beat writer. The Washington Post has one of each, often standing side by side, notepad by notepad.

Meanwhile, the Lakers continue their on-again, off-again quest for home-court advantage in the first of four rounds of the playoffs. The Wizards, out of the playoffs since 1997, arrive tonight 21/2 games and two teams out of the Eastern Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot.

The Lakers appear to have decided that early-round games at Staples Center are pleasant but not critical. This four-game trip--stops in New Jersey, Boston and Miami follow Washington--could go a long way toward determining if the Western Conference finals will open in Sacramento or Los Angeles, should it come to that. The Lakers sit two losses behind the Kings, with the season’s final game against the Kings in Los Angeles.

They have won five of six games since they lost twice in Texas. And, they haven’t lost to a good team since then, which, if you follow the Lakers closely, makes perfect sense.

“We’re getting there,” Shaquille O’Neal said on the way to his car Sunday night. “I know once the playoffs come, our guys will have a whole different energy and a whole different adrenaline.”

Their guys say the same about O’Neal, perhaps headed for off-season surgery on his rigid big toe.

“It’s important that he pick his spots, and he does that,” Kobe Bryant said. “He waits for the right time to suck up the pain, to make the necessary slides defensively.”

Jordan could be making those same decisions, asking his knees for enough to compete, for enough lift for his jump shots, for just enough to push the Wizards past Toronto and Indiana (or Philadelphia) in the next nine games. He came off the bench Sunday and scored 10 points in 28 minutes in the Wizards’ 110-103 loss to Dallas, two days after scoring 34 points in 26 minutes against the Milwaukee Bucks.

“He could find a way to play even though he’s limited,” said Laker Coach Phil Jackson, Jordan’s coach for six championships in Chicago. “All he wants his team to do, I’m sure, is get to the playoffs. He’d like to help lead that charge, as long as he’s been part of the team all year and committed himself, I’m sure he wants to have an outcome of success.”

Beyond that, Jackson said, “I think then he’ll assess where his knee is at. In this case, very often they go in--and I’m not trying to say anything about it--but at some point in time, there’s arthritis, and there’s not a whole lot of cushion there for the knee.

“Regardless of how much you want to rehabilitate the knee, the knee is only going to be able to do so much. You start getting bone on bone when you’re out there on the court, to me there’s not a whole lot you can do.”

The Lakers are taking unsteady steps as well, trying to live with O’Neal’s condition and, subsequently, curious about whence the rebounds and defensive stops will come. They beat Sacramento, Portland and San Antonio in eight days, but the Kings lacked Peja Stojakovic and the Trail Blazers played without Rasheed Wallace.

“The Portland game doesn’t count because Rasheed didn’t play,” Laker forward Robert Horry said. “We didn’t take them out like we should have. We played all right [against San Antonio]. We could’ve played a lot better. I’ll tell you when we get back from this road trip if we are where we should be.”