Staying Power

Game 7 ... is necessary.

Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant made it so.

The Lakers, down a game and facing elimination along with the end of their three-peat desires, defeated the Sacramento Kings, 106-102, Friday night at Staples Center, forcing one last game in the Western Conference finals. It will be played at Arco Arena on Sunday afternoon.

“The pressure’s on them,” O’Neal said. “We play well in their building.”

The winner will advance to the NBA Finals, where it will play the New Jersey Nets, who eliminated the Boston Celtics on Friday night in Boston.

O’Neal scored 41 points and took 17 rebounds. He shot 17 free throws, and made 13. Bryant scored 31 points. He shot 11 free throws, seven of them in the fourth quarter, and made them all.

“He said, ‘Come to me,’” Robert Horry said of O’Neal. “He has not said that in a long time. He said, ‘I am going to do the little things.’ We like it better when he says ‘Come to me.’

“He looked like the old Shaq of last year. He was doing everything.”

The Lakers scored 16 of their final 18 points from the free-throw line, all in the final quarter, when, in a series where the officiating has swung capriciously from one team to the other, the Lakers shot 27 free throws. They shot 40 overall.

On the critical late possession for the Kings, Mike Bibby missed a three-point shot inside five seconds remaining. This time there was no confusion. Bryant defended him at the top, and Horry took the rebound, and the Lakers danced into a Game 7, their 16th since moving to Los Angeles four decades ago. They’ve won nine of them, the last two years ago against the Portland Trail Blazers in the conference finals.

The Lakers held a 101-100 lead with 19.8 seconds left. Bryant made two free throws. Hedo Turkoglu made a layup to bring the Kings to within 103-102, and Bryant made two more free throws, with 11.8 seconds left.

That’s when Bibby missed. He dribbled up the left side of the floor, turned right and found himself 25 feet from the basket. Rather than Derek Fisher, Bryant stood before him, and Bibby was wide left with the three-point attempt. Horry made the final free throw to give the Lakers their four-point lead.

“The thing that bothered us, everybody was counting us out,” Bryant said. “We’ll go to Sacramento and see what’s what. It’s going to be a fun game.

“We’re the champs and they’re going to have to take it from us.”

Afterward, O’Neal said Bryant had called him very early Friday morning.

“Big fella,” Bryant told him, “need you tomorrow. We’ll make history.”

It was 2:30 a.m. O’Neal’s infant daughter stirred beside him.

“I woke his big behind up,” Bryant said, laughing. “I knew he wasn’t asleep. He doesn’t go to sleep until 5 in the morning. I can’t get the game off my mind. Since he’s the other captain, I wanted to make sure he couldn’t get the game off his mind either. Just wanted him to think about it.

“We’ve been through so much together since we came here ... this is nothing. Facing elimination, this is nothing for us. He felt the same way I did.”

They combined for 72 points and 45 shots, and scored 23 of the Lakers’ 31 fourth-quarter points, when the Kings scored 27. As usual, the Kings were more balanced, with six players in double figures. Chris Webber scored 26 points and Bibby scored 23, but Bibby was seven for 20 from the floor. The Kings shot 25 free throws, 15 fewer than the Lakers, so there was the usual griping, which O’Neal would hear none of.

“You have to foul me to stop me,” O’Neal said. “Period.”

He had 21 points at halftime and by early in the fourth quarter had made his first 10 free-throw attempts.

The Lakers got some calls. “A shame,” King Coach Rick Adelman called it.

Scot Pollard fouled out in 11 minutes. Divac fouled out with 2:56 remaining. In Game 5 in Sacramento, they had three fouls between them, in 48 minutes.

In the middle of the fourth quarter, O’Neal was defended on some possessions by Webber, on others by Lawrence Funderburke. By late in the quarter, with Webber also in foul trouble, there was only Funderburke, and O’Neal attacked with jump hooks and turnarounds.

Neither Divac nor Pollard had better luck. On an arthritic toe that has slowed him for most of the season, O’Neal has regained significant parts of his game lately. In Game 6, he spun to the baseline like a healthy O’Neal, and he had enough in his legs to twice take rebounds and push the ball up the floor.

It became O’Neal’s most dominant postseason game since last season’s conference semifinals, when he twice beat the Kings with games of 40-plus points and 20 or more rebounds.

“We played hard,” O’Neal said. “We played with emotion.”

The Lakers have held the title for nearly two years, through two seasons and 10 consecutive playoff series, through Sacramento and San Antonio twice and Portland three times, through Indiana and Philadelphia, among others.

In that time, in those series, particularly the last seven or eight, the Kings are the first to play as though they do not fear the Lakers.

The Lakers hung two banners and forged untold numbers of championship rings, and now the next comes down to one game.

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By the Numbers

72 - Combined points for Shaquille O’Neal (41) and Kobe Bryant (31).

17 - O’Neal free throws in Game 6. He made 13.

1 - O’Neal free throws in Game 5. He missed it.

26 - Points for King forward Chris Webber, along with 13 rebounds and eight assists.

12 - Combined fouls of King centers Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard. They each fouled out.

7-6 - Lakers’ record at Arco Arena under Phil Jackson.

20 - Years since road team won Game 7 in conference finals or NBA Finals (Philadelphia at Boston).