Lakers’ April Cower

The Lakers lost another game on Friday night, meaning April won’t be so gaudy this time around.

They lost it badly, with Shaquille O’Neal on the bench, with Kobe Bryant missing jump shots, with Samaki Walker charging that they quit in the face of the healthy and rallying Boston Celtics, and this sure doesn’t feel like a team roaring toward the playoffs.

Of course, it wouldn’t with O’Neal hurting anyway. But, in the aftermath of a 99-81 defeat at FleetCenter, Walker, nearly shaking from the virus that wracked him for the previous 48 hours, said it all felt very wrong.

“I thought we gave up,” he said. “I thought we felt for a minute we could compete. But, once we saw we couldn’t compete, we gave up.

“[Without O’Neal] it’s hard. At the same time, we have to take it upon ourselves to group together.”

While there seemed to be valor in Wednesday night’s defeat in New Jersey, where they rallied from 19 down only to lose at the buzzer as O’Neal rested his sprained wrist, the Lakers left no one with that sense here. They flung jump shots that did not fall, they were overrun by Paul Pierce (33 points) and Tony Battie (15 rebounds in 26 minutes), and they finally trudged off the parquet with season lows for points, field goals (28) and assists (11).

Bryant, who typically finds inspiration in such Shaq-less dilemmas, was five for 25 from the floor, the worst shooting of his career with at least 20 attempts. He scored 26 points, 16 of them from the free-throw line.

“I’ve had worse shooting nights,” Bryant insisted. “It’s been a while. I’m glad it’s out of my system now.”

As a result of these two defeats in three days, the Lakers have all but lost their chance to win a third consecutive Pacific Division title or to take home-court advantage through the postseason. The Sacramento Kings have four fewer losses, and the Lakers have only six games remaining. The Lakers also have one more loss than the Dallas Mavericks.

“Not worried,” Coach Phil Jackson said curtly, though he admitted the Kings “would have to falter quite a bit” for the Lakers to catch them.

A year ago, the Lakers won their last eight regular-season games, a streak they said helped drive them to a 15-1 postseason and their second consecutive championship. Now they’ve got O’Neal to heal and a defense to settle and at least a few late losses to forget about. Only the part about O’Neal seems critical, however, and Jackson said he expected O’Neal to play Sunday against the Miami Heat.

If nothing else, O’Neal’s return would help their interior defense and eliminate the urge to jack up 19 three-point attempts, as the Lakers did against the Celtics, missing all but three. The Celtics made 10 of 25, five of nine in the fourth quarter, when they outscored the Lakers, 33-23. They had clinched a place in the playoffs the night before, when Indiana lost, and then they put out a press release.

“We’ve played some good games without the big fella,” said Walker, who sipped chicken broth and Gatorade for a day and a half and then had six points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes. “We just didn’t come prepared.”

Rick Fox considered Walker’s charge and then raised his head.

“Thought we gave up?” he said. “I guess that’s one teammate’s opinion. I don’t begrudge him his opinion. I don’t know if he speaks for all of us.

“We got outplayed, flat-out outplayed. The score may look like we gave up. Sometimes you get beat. We got beat tonight.

“That’s not quitting. That’s not playing smart.”

Occasionally the Lakers are sound of game and cranky of mood when O’Neal does not play, because there is a broad assumption they are not very good without him.

It makes them edgy, Bryant in particular. This time, however, the Lakers looked resigned to the loss against the Celtics, and that perhaps was what Walker was talking about.

Funny thing, it had been only three days since they had routed Washington, when O’Neal looked spry and Bryant looked dynamic and everyone looked together.

“You talk about feeling good about ourselves, and clicking,” Fox said. “We figured we’d go out on this trip and run the table.”

It changed when O’Neal’s wrist began to ache, and when their game did, and maybe their psyches too.

“Now,” Fox said, “it’s a matter of how healthy we can be.”