Kobe or Not Kobe, the Lakers Still Win

Just when the Lakers were wondering what, or which of them, might go wrong next, they had one of those nights you dream about.

They won without Kobe Bryant, they moved within one game of West leader Sacramento and they got their players off the floor without incident.

Shaquille O’Neal put on the suspended Bryant’s No. 8 jersey for pregame warmups and then put the Rockets to flight, rolling up 36 points in 34 minutes, to go with his 14 rebounds and seven assists as the Lakers cruised to a 95-79 victory Sunday night before 18,997 in Staples Center.

Of course, O’Neal played the game in his own No. 34, or they might have had to revive him.

“That’s my guy,” he said of Bryant afterward. “I knew you [press] would ask me questions about it and I knew they’d show it on every channel so that’s why I did it, to keep him alive.”

“I thought it was funny,” said teammate Robert Horry of O’Neal’s tribute, “because I wanted to know how he was going to get his big rear end into it.”

So Sunday ended better for the Lakers than it started. Before their morning shoot-around, they learned that Bryant and Indiana’s Reggie Miller had each been suspended for two games for their fight after Friday’s game.

Bryant will also miss Tuesday’s game here against East-leading New Jersey.

“It’s a big matchup for both teams,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “It appears they’re going to be without [Kenyon] Martin [suspended for a game because he’s exceeded the flagrant-foul limit]. It’s duly a fact that we’re going to be without Kobe.”

Unfortunately for the Rockets, who feature a slender front line, when the Lakers are without Bryant, they have little choice but to sock the ball in to O’Neal, time after time.

On the Lakers’ first possession, O’Neal made a short jumper. On the second, he missed, got the rebound and dunked.

At that point, the Rockets seemed to decide it would be a good idea to contest this one at a distance. They launched 20 three-point attempts, perhaps on the theory that each one they made counted more than O’Neal’s did, but they only made seven.

Meanwhile, Shaq was going 15 for 21 from the field. Since he rebounded most of his own misses, you can see what the Rockets were up against.

“I ain’t got the answer,” Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “What makes him great, he moves the ball around. He gets guys layups. It’s got to be fun to play with him.”

It can’t be much fun for players such as Kelvin Cato and Eddie Griffin, who aren’t much bigger than Horry, to try to keep O’Neal out of the lane.

“You just try to do everything you can to keep him from getting it,” Horry said. “You know, front him, do whatever you can. It’s hard. He’s so good in there at times, when guys front him, that we can read it, that we can get it to him any time we want to.

“Basically, you just hope he misses his shots....

“I think he can get a lot better. Because right now, there’s still been a couple games where he hasn’t been, you know, Shaq. He was Shaq starting the game out against Indiana, because of certain circumstances.

“I still think he’s getting better and that’s going to make us better.”

The Lakers have won six of seven, which isn’t bad, given all their personnel comings and goings.

“I know he’s going to come back with a different vengeance,” said O’Neal of Bryant, “and it’s going to put us right back on track. Everything happens for a reason.... He’s going to want to show people that they made a mistake, not him....

“A man has to do what a man has to do. If the powers that be order the powers below to control the game, then none of this would have happened. The guy didn’t start fighting just to be fighting. If you let ... go on for eight or nine minutes, it’s going to add up.

“The people upstairs, instead of fining you for ... they need to worry about the game and worry about what’s really going on.

“I’m not saying he’s justified. I’m just saying a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”