Amazingly, They Already Seem Out of Answers

This is going to be worse than we thought.

The Lakers played a fairly consistent game--Shaquille O’Neal did, anyway--and there was nothing the New Jersey Nets could do about it. The only time they made it interesting was when they made four consecutive three-point baskets at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Is that what it’s going to take for them to win? Making three-pointers on every possession? Can’t we stop this?

NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol must be negotiating a deal to hand the NBA rights over to ABC by Sunday afternoon. Because by 9 p.m. Eastern time that night, fans will be switching off this series and heading to HBO for “The Sopranos.”

After the Lakers’ 106-83 victory in Game 2, the series has a dreadful feel to it. Outside of L.A. and a few pockets of the Garden State, the NBA Finals just dropped to the bottom of the sports list. Let’s see. Tyson-Lewis, Belmont Stakes, Venus vs. Serena, interleague play and even the World Cup (Univision broadcasts, of course. GOOOOOL!!!)

You know things are bad for New Jersey when reporters are asking the Lakers what the Nets can do differently after the first two games. Guess it wouldn’t make sense to ask the Nets about the gigantic mismatch in the middle of this series.

“I just don’t know what to do about Shaq right now,” New Jersey Coach Byron Scott said.

In the interest of fairness (OK, in the interest of seeing the Nets win one game so I can spend a couple of more days in New York this week) here’s some things the Nets might want to think about:

* Don’t let the Lakers throw the entry pass to O’Neal from half court. Four or five times, the Lakers took one step into the frontcourt and tossed the ball to O’Neal standing next to the hoop. Front him, because it’s always riskier to throw a pass over a defender. It’s never too early to double-team him. And with the new defense rules it’s never illegal.

* Try going at O’Neal to get him in foul trouble. It worked for the Sacramento Kings. It’s apparently a foreign concept to the Nets. Jason Kidd seems scared whenever he gets in the key and the Big Fella comes over to help. He’ll turn away from the basket, and it’s pretty hard to score or draw a foul facing the other way.

They could also try.... ahh, why bother. The only drama left in this series is for the gamblers worried about the spread.

The Nets have homecourt advantage for the next three games, but the Lakers have just found the elusive edge they’ve sought since December: momentum.

“Yeah, with only a few more games left,” Rick Fox said. “But that’s been the run of the season. The focus was so much on being healthy this time of the year that we never practiced that much together. And Phil [Jackson] knew what he was doing. He knew he’d rather have us healthy with fresh legs at this time of year than run us into the ground.”

Now the Lakers say they feel better than they have all season. You haven’t heard much talk about Shaq’s toes as he has scored 76 points in the first two games.

The Lakers are on a roll.

Ever since that miraculous play when Robert Horry made that buzzer-beating shot in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, the Lakers have played well enough to win in each of the next five games, and they did convert four of those into victories.

As Fox said, “No sense winning the basketball lottery and not collecting the money.”

Said Brian Shaw: “We’re playing better in stretches. But I still don’t think we’ve played our best basketball.”

To Shaw, it’s like the Raider teams he watched as a kid in Oakland.

“They would win, but win ugly,” Shaw said. “When you can win ugly, that’s a tribute to what kind of team you are. Even on the bad nights you still find a way to get it done. We’ve had our share of bad nights, but the experience and the heart allows us to pull out games.”

Among the things they’re doing wrong: not providing scoring off the bench or keeping the Nets off the offensive glass.

The main thing they’re doing right: getting the ball to O’Neal.

When that happens, things have a way of working out.

If only it were that easy for the Nets. They don’t have anyone they can count on to get a high-percentage shot. So we’re seeing plenty of long jumpers by Kerry Kittles and mid-range jumpers for Kenyon Martin.

The Nets are so reliant on fastbreaks, but those are hard to come by when the Lakers keep going to Shaq for layups and/or free throws. Even when he misses, they aren’t the long rebounds that jump-start fastbreaks.

And Kidd. Kidd is a great player. He makes his guys better. The New Jersey offense is built for the ball to be in his hands. The only problem is, the longer he has it, the worse the Nets are. When he’s shooting, the Lakers are smiling inside.

He’s shooting 41% in the playoffs, including 17 for 43 (39.5%) in these first two games.

At least the Nets keep trying hard. I thought they would heed the words of the House of Pain song that played in Staples Center before the fourth quarter (“Pack it up, pack it in ... “), but they came out with a 14-2 run and cut a one-time 20-point lead down to four. Then O’Neal returned to the game and the series returned to its natural order.

“We haven’t done anything but establish the fact that we’re able to win on our homecourt,” Jackson insisted.

That’s like saying Denzel Washington’s Oscar established the fact that he can act.

We knew that already, just like we knew the Lakers could defeat the Nets here or in the swamp.

“They haven’t played their best game yet,” Kidd said. “We haven’t played our best game.”

True, true. But if both of those things happen next game, we know what the outcome will be.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com