Three-Feat Is in Sight for Lakers

They stand less than a week from the playoffs and still have championship three-peat issues, maybe some major ones.

But, they have Shaquille O’Neal measuring doses of Indocin and reasonably healthy, and in the second half Monday night they got Kobe Bryant back, and so their on-and-off vulnerability is off again, at least for the moment. It gets hard to keep up.

The Lakers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 111-104, at Staples Center, where O’Neal had 41 points and 11 rebounds in 34 mostly leisurely minutes and Bryant had 19, 15 in a more Kobe-like third quarter.

“We had a third quarter that looked like a team I remember, that played in the playoffs last year,” Phil Jackson said of their 33-21 advantage in that period.

The Lakers, San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks each have 24 losses. If the Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night at Staples Center in their regular-season finale, they will clinch the No. 3 seeding in the Western Conference playoffs and open this weekend at home against the Portland Trail Blazers.

If they lose Wednesday, they could fall to the No. 4 seeding and play the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round, and quite possibly lose home-court advantage for the rest of the Western Conference playoffs. If they beat the Timberwolves, their second-round opponent would probably be top-seeded Sacramento.

However it plays out, they’ll bring O’Neal. Depending on his mood and his toe, it might be enough. He has scored at least 32 points in four of five games and he has made 67 of his last 94 free throws, and 31 of his last 41, after making nine of 11 Monday.

“Shaq,” Jackson said, “was incredible.”

He should not have had to play the fourth quarter against the SuperSonics, who are drifting toward the playoffs having lost six of seven. But, as the Lakers are prone to do, they quit playing defense with a large, late lead, and so Jackson summoned Bryant and O’Neal from beneath their shoulder towels to save everyone the embarrassment. O’Neal sealed it with nine points in five minutes in the final quarter, and finished with 16 field goals in 21 attempts.

“He’s getting ready for the playoffs, I guess,” Robert Horry said. “He knows what time it is.”

Bryant played as though distracted for much of Sunday’s loss in Portland, where his jump shot spun sideways and he missed nine of 15 shots. While he appeared to have similar fractured moments in the first half against the SuperSonics, he made five of 11 shots in the third quarter, including a three-pointer, his 10th in his last 57 tries.

“I was just out there reading the game, letting my teammates play a little more,” Bryant insisted.

In the second quarter, about halfway through, Seattle center Jerome James stood in a defensive posture on the right wing, three feet in front of O’Neal, fairly confident despite the fact O’Neal was scoring at will against James and his frontcourt brethren.

Confident, because, you know, how bad could it be?

SportsCenter bad, as it turned out.

Will-be-seeing-it-for-years bad. Grandchildren-bringing-it-up-at-dinner bad. Poster bad.

O’Neal rocked forward, juked right and then crossed over left.

It is possible James is still standing out there on the right wing, in perfect defensive posture, waiting for O’Neal’s first move.

The next anyone knew, O’Neal was at the rim, four steps and a one-handed dunk while the crowd gasped and roared, and his teammates applauded and laughed as O’Neal galloped back down the floor, arms and legs rigid.

“There are a lot of things I’m not allowed to do,” he said. “Being too good is a crime sometimes.”

He had 24 points by halftime, having made nine of 12 field-goal attempts (five were dunks) and six of seven free throws.

The Lakers arrived into the season’s final half-week having lost three games in six, and having lost in two overtimes the night before in Portland, where O’Neal played 49 minutes, Bryant played 51 and Derek Fisher played 45. Those were all season highs for a team that doesn’t do back-to-backs well in the best of circumstances.

“I think my guys were bored during the regular season,” O’Neal said.

They were 7-11 on the back end of those series, primarily because their veteran legs aren’t as resilient as they once were. In deference to that, O’Neal sat with 2:22 left in the first quarter and did not return until nearly three minutes were gone in the second. Neither Bryant nor Fisher started the second quarter, one of the few times recently when O’Neal and Bryant shared the bench with a game in question.

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