Lakers Move Center’s Stage to New Jersey

Jason Kidd sat in the interview room at Staples Center on Friday night and said, “We’re not intimidated by Shaq,” and, of course, no one believed him.

An hour before, Shaquille O’Neal had worn Aaron Williams as a shawl, over his shoulders like evening wear, after pump-faking him into the air.

Now, if you’re the New Jersey Nets and you’ve just thrown your strongest player at the Lakers, and O’Neal brings him back as though he were carrying a downed buck out of the forest, maybe it’s time to consider your mortality in these NBA Finals.

Through two games, there is only one hunter in this series. Everyone else is hiding in a log. The Lakers, on the strength of O’Neal’s immovable game, lead the series, two games to none, with Game 3 tonight at Continental Airlines Arena, and so they are that close to their precious three-peat.

Games 4 and, ahem, 5 also are scheduled for the same building, though the Lakers are at a point now where a series of more than four games would appear untidy. O’Neal scored 36 points in Game 1, then 40 in Game 2, and everything Net Coach Byron Scott has tried, it seems, has been brought back over O’Neal’s shoulders and laid at his feet.

“It seems like he never has a bad night,” Net center Todd MacCulloch said. “He just kind of wears you down.”

The Nets have led the series for 59 seconds, a New Jersey minute, 2-0 and 4-2 in Game 1. They spent their three days in Los Angeles falling behind by 20 points and then drawing within six, over and over, never having quite enough, never getting around the ease in which O’Neal has scored.

“This isn’t the way we want to play basketball,” Scott said, as if they had a choice in it. “We want to get it up and down the floor. Right now, we’re not being a very disciplined team, to be honest with you.”

It happens every year around this time. Ask the Indiana Pacers. Check with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Rick Fox, who has played two solid games around O’Neal’s dominance, stood in the afterglow Friday night and said, “This is not a fluke. It’s a big stage. The world is watching.”

With his 34.2-point average in 17 career Finals games, O’Neal is the leading scorer among those who have played at least 15 of them. His 40-point Game 2 was his fifth 40-plus game in the Finals and the 43rd in Finals history, and he appears on his way to becoming a Finals MVP for the third consecutive season, done previously only by Michael Jordan, twice.

“Shaquille, he’s playing at a level now where, I mean, he’s in his prime, and there’s nothing anybody can do about that,” Kobe Bryant said.

Assuming the same health for O’Neal and the same tentative defense by the Nets, the Lakers could finish this in East Rutherford, N.J., an easy drive from Newark, where O’Neal was born and spent his early years. Since the league went to the 2-3-2 format in the mid-1980s, no home team has won the middle three games.

The Lakers won the middle three--what turned out to be the final three--in Philadelphia last season. They have won 13 of their last 15 road playoff games, just a week ago becoming the first Laker team in history to win a Game 7 on the road, in Sacramento.

“So, we know what history means for us,” Coach Phil Jackson said before Friday’s game. “If we go and have a 2-0 lead into New Jersey, it’s going to be difficult for them to pull off a feat that’s never been done.”

And to do it in a place where O’Neal feels so comfortable.

“I’m going to do what I usually do when I go to New Jersey,” O’Neal said. “I’m going to go see my father’s father and I’m going to see my great-grandmother. Chill out. Eat some macaroni and cheese and fried chicken and just hang out. That will be about it.

“I have so much family there that I probably won’t even see them. They realize that, you know, they know not to call me. They know who to call for tickets and stuff like that. But, I got to take care of business. I mean, I’m sure they’re New Jersey fans and I’m sure I’ll get booed and all that, but I’m on a mission and I want to take care of business. Nothing else really matters.”

Said Fox: “Right now, our focus is still to not be careless with our respect for this team.”

No one figures the Nets to defend O’Neal straight up again. But, then, Game 1 would have seemed evidence enough, and once again Net guards and forwards hesitated on their double-team assignments in Game 2.

“I expect them to pick up the pressure defensively,” Bryant said. “They’ll probably try to do that, so when we throw the ball in to Shaquille, he’ll catch it with 10 seconds left on the shot clock and have less time to operate. I expect the shots that they missed here in Staples Center to fall in New Jersey. I seriously doubt they’ll shoot 30-something percent in the first half there.”

If they are grasping for bits of confidence, the Nets will recall that they beat the Lakers on their floor on April 3, by 94-92, when Bryant led the Lakers back from a 19-point deficit, only to miss a point-blank put-back near the final buzzer.

However, O’Neal didn’t play in that game.

“The big thing with the Lakers is they probably feel they haven’t played their best game yet, and they’ve been successful,” Kidd said. “So, in that aspect, that could be scary.

“They’ve been down this road, more than once.”

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*--* The Big Scorer Shaquille O’Neal holds the best scoring average in the NBA Finals with a minimum of 15 games played: Player G Avg Shaquille O’Neal 17 34.2 Michael Jordan 35 33.6 Jerry West 55 30.5 Bob Pettit 25 28.4 Hakeem Olajuwon 17 27.5 Elgin Baylor 44 26.4 Julius Erving 22 25.5 Clyde Drexler 15 24.5

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