Silver Linings Just Keep Turning Into Fool’s Gold

Let’s see, Kobe Bryant is back doing what they need, Shaquille O’Neal isn’t upset, the supporting cast is playing better....

What’s missing?

Oh yes, the victory. There is that.

Having failed to resemble the 2002 champions in New Jersey, the Lakers drove south to the arena where they won in 2001 but that didn’t quite do it, either.

It was just more of the same ... another town ... more fulsome praise by the opponent ... another loss.

The Lakers played better. Bryant was back on his game in a big way, 44 points and 10 assists’ worth, and O’Neal was feeling so good about things, he ended his media boycott, but in the end ...

Bingo!

They now have 18 of the 20 losses they need at this time of the year before Phil Jackson says it would be “devastating for us to overcome and we know that.”

Remember when Phil said he just had his sights set on 50 wins? He may have to recalibrate again because when you start 10-18, you have to finish 40-14.

It would have been really nice for the Lakes to read about themselves in the local papers before this one. Philadelphia Coach Larry Brown, who’s as gracious as he is zany, who lavished praise upon the Lakers even as they beat his team’s brains out in the 2001 Finals, was back at it, pooh-poohing talk of their problems, predicting more great things for them.

“I think they’re the best team,” Brown said. “They’ve won championships. They have two of the best players in the league.

“Nobody’s had an answer for Shaq [and] I don’t think there’s anybody in the league any better than Kobe all-around. There might be some as good, but they’re special players. They have had their problems, but I think they’ve always proven to me that they’re the best team when everybody’s healthy.”

Where had we heard that before?

Oh yes, in New Jersey, and Minnesota before that, and that’s just on this trip, on which they still haven’t won.

That’s the way it has been going. The Lakers would arrive to huzzahs. The opponent would roll out its A game and the Lakers couldn’t respond with much more than their D game, which wasn’t even enough to beat small fry like the Heat and Cavaliers.

Friday was different for the Lakers. Just not different enough.

Problem No. 1 had been solved at New Jersey, where Bryant went back to shooting, even if he missed 21 of 29, which turned that evening into an unseemly-looking waste of time and loss No. 17.

Problem 1A, Shaq’s mood, started looking better before Friday’s game, when he broke his nine-day vow of silence, taking questions from the media, explaining he had only spoken angrily of his teammates’ contribution in an attempt to motivate them.

Not that this was earth-shaking news, just a good omen for Laker fans. However, Shaq being Shaq, just the news that he was talking prompted the Associated Press office in New York to query its correspondent at the game, wanting to know what Shaq had said.

Thus, it wasn’t a complete surprise when the Lakers took the floor and began looking like a good basketball team, for the first time in weeks, or this season.

Bryant was as aggressive as they needed him to be, ignoring the boos that poured forth from his resentful fellow Philly natives each time he touched the ball, going 52 of a possible 53 minutes and scoring 44 points.

Afterward, he called them “fun boos,” but that was after taking a long, long time to dress, a clear sign he needed a happier ending.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, if they didn’t get the 76ers’ A game -- it’s hard to call it that when Allen Iverson is missing 22 of 33 shots -- they got a big 76er effort, especially by born-again-if-belatedly Derrick Coleman, now a 35-year-old backup center, who tottered off the bench on his old, used-up legs and went for 18 points and eight rebounds in 27 minutes.

So they fought on even terms to the end, with the Lakers cutting a nine-point deficit early in the fourth quarter to four with O’Neal on the bench ... the Lakers taking the lead ... O’Neal missing four free throws in the last 2:42 of regulation ... O’Neal fouling out in overtime ... the Lakers cutting a five-point deficit to one in the last 28 seconds of overtime ... before Rick Fox couldn’t handle Robert Horry’s pass for the potential game-winner.

Sometimes you play well and you lose anyway, even when you’re the three-time defending champions.

Not that they were in any mood for silver linings. Bryant took all that time to dress. O’Neal started a new vow of silence.

Jackson, who has recently been giving out ever sunnier assessments after ever-more gruesome efforts, should have been enchanted with this one, at least on a relative basis, but he looked more overcast and gloomy.

“You make your own breaks in this game,” he said stonily. “I’m not going to complain about that.”

Next stop: Toronto, where, no doubt, no one can believe what’s happening to the Lakers, and where, for the Lakers’ sake, it had better not continue.