Now You Can Call Him the Big Dipper

Whatever postseason edge he will pursue for a Laker team that has its vulnerable moments, Phil Jackson’s only calling would appear to be to take Shaquille O’Neal, this Shaquille O’Neal, and deliver him to Game 1, Series 1 of the Western Conference playoffs.

On the floor for the first time in three games, since the morning he awoke to a swollen right wrist and the next four days off, O’Neal was fierce and fluid Sunday afternoon, all that makes the Lakers imposing from April through June.

He scored 40 points and took 11 rebounds in a 96-88 win over the moribund Miami Heat, a bit livelier for national television. He blocked two shots and had two assists and, even in the face of a late, awkward attempt at a Hack-a-Shaq by the has-no-shame Pat Riley, made 12 of 19 free-throw attempts, a handful even arcing and falling softly.

“That’s the Shaq that will take us to another championship,” forward Rick Fox said.

Not that the other one, the toe-wrapped, orthotic-wearing, Indocin-chewing center, is some treat for a league bereft of others like him. O’Neal will finish in the top three in the most valuable player vote despite a physically miserable season that probably will be followed by surgery. He has averaged 26.7 points and 10.8 rebounds and made 57.6% of his shots, all below his career numbers, all while wincing on every step.

Then, after a few days’ rest, he’s above the floor again, taking rebounds, dunking without regard to a wrist he now believes was sprained by repeated hacks--meaning the actions, not those who attempt to defend him.

“I don’t get hurt,” O’Neal had said. “I get taken out.”

When he returns, he is strong and spry and angry, and so even Alonzo Mourning and Brian Grant, two of the NBA’s tough guys, flinched. O’Neal scored the Lakers’ first 13 points and had 22 by halftime, at which time there appeared to be little doubt the Lakers would win for the second time on the four-game trip that ended Sunday.

The Heat did push back late in the third and early in the fourth quarter, when the Lakers stopped switching with Miami’s high screen-and-roll, and Heat jump shooters were open, and their shots drew them to within 73-71. The Lakers scored the next 10 points, four by O’Neal around the basket.

“I am just trying to get back on track,” O’Neal said. “We are a better team when all of our components are in place. Tonight my teammates looked for me and I did what I always do.”

Kobe Bryant went to bed Saturday night feeling ill and woke up the same way, and O’Neal hadn’t played since Tuesday in Washington, so it was predictable when O’Neal took hold of the offense.

Mourning was game, but O’Neal was particularly determined, and so Zo had no chance. Bryant had 19 points and 11 rebounds and Devean George had 11 second-quarter points, most of them when his defender chased after O’Neal. But the Lakers went to O’Neal first, and if his wrist bothered him, it didn’t look like it, because his short jumpers were soft and true.

“He just picks you apart,” Riley said. “He is very skilled now. He sees everything very well. When he is ready to power you, he senses you are not coming anymore and he makes up his mind and goes to the rim.

“He is the strongest player in the league and he has been for the last four or five years. The only guy that I ever thought was close to him was Wilt.”

O’Neal would like that, of course, and for that compliment might forgive Riley his late Hack-a-Shaq attempts. The Heat clearly hadn’t much practiced it, once fouling O’Neal before the ball was inbounded, and then fouling him with less than two minutes to play, giving the Lakers the option to have anyone shoot the free throw. Jackson ignored the fun of having O’Neal shoot it, however, opting for Bryant instead.

The challenge now, of course, is maintaining O’Neal’s Chamberlain mode through June.

“It’s nice to have Shaq back,” Jackson said, in understatement. “It makes a difference in the team.”