Lakers’ Big Hopes Rest in Shaq’s Big Toe

Forget the pondering about what’s going on inside Kobe Bryant’s head. The two-game suspension Bryant served for that after-buzzer punch thrown at Reggie Miller provided a solid answer to the most important question about the Lakers: How will Shaquille O’Neal’s right big toe hold up?

They asked O’Neal to carry them to two victories and he did. He came through with 36 points and 14 rebounds against the Houston Rockets on Sunday, then posted 40 and 12 against the New Jersey Nets on Tuesday night.

“It’s still killing me,” O’Neal said. “But I suck it up. I’ve got heart.”

Heart and a cart. The walk from the locker room to his car is so laborious that he climbed aboard an electric cart to save him the final 100 steps or so. His teammates are so concerned about his feet that they made him stop a playful wrestling session with a ball boy before Sunday’s game.

But on the court, he still showed them he has enough to get them where they expect to go. Enough for Phil Jackson, when asked if he felt confident that O’Neal could sustain a full playoff run, to say: “Mmm-hmm.”

In the face of the unknown, they move on with that quiet endorsement from the coach and the usual outspoken confidence of O’Neal.

“Even though I have a bum toe, I still can get 30, 40 whenever I want to,” he said.

The toe must support more than O’Neal’s hefty weight. The Lakers’ hopes for a third consecutive championship ride on it.

O’Neal is the one element on the Lakers that no team can answer. Break down the playoff matchups any way you want, but the analysis always gets back to: What is Team X going to do about Shaq?

This season, for the first time, O’Neal has presented just as big a quandary for the Lakers. The soreness and arthritis in the toe kept them from knowing when he could play and just how much he could give them when he was in the lineup. It hurts on top and on the side.

He always looks like his usual dominant self when he first comes back from a sit-down, be it his two stays on the injured list or his three-game suspension for swinging at Brad Miller. He scored 24 points in 28 minutes when he returned against Phoenix on Jan. 4. He had 40 and 11 rebounds against Denver on Jan. 22. In his most recent comeback he had 25 points and 17 rebounds against Boston on Feb. 19.

But he also shows a trend toward slumping after extended stretches of action. He’ll struggle just to get the ball to the rim and can’t do anything on defense. It throws the whole team off its game. He shot 11 for 25 against Memphis right before his first stint on the injured list. Six games into his return, he was five for 14 the night he went after Brad Miller. Playing in the second game of a back-to-back, at the end of a five-game trip, O’Neal missed 11 of 19 shots in a loss at Minnesota last week.

The playoffs don’t have back-to-backs, or four games in five nights.

On Wednesday in a back-to-back situation, he had 28 points and 12 rebounds in a loss at Utah.

“I’m not even worried because playoffs are going to be spread out,” O’Neal said.

“I’ll play in the game, get [messed] up, take the next day of practice off, then get back. I’ll be all right.”

For now, he takes anti-inflammatory pills. He went for an acupuncture session before the Boston game, and he said he will make more use of the magic needles (his “secret weapon”) during the playoffs.

When the Michael Jordan comeback rumors heated up during last year’s playoffs, O’Neal noted (prophetically) that “39 ain’t 29.” It turns out that 29 ain’t 24, either.

Tuesday night, on the eve of his 30th birthday, O’Neal said: “I can’t do the same things I used to do when I was younger. I don’t bounce back from injuries like when I was 24. I used to get beat up, go out to the club and hang out all night. But now I can’t do that. Michael said once you get older, you have to work even harder to keep up with the young guys. Hopefully, I can maintain it.”

He also is making the Jordan-like adjustment and is playing smarter as he gets older. He understands the game better. He recognizes the double-teams faster and spins away from them. He has a more intuitive feel for where his teammates could and should be.

He became the Lakers’ point guard during those two games. Although he didn’t bring the ball up court, he touched it on almost every possession and directed traffic. He had seven assists Sunday, and four more Tuesday. The Lakers outscored New Jersey by 13 points when he was on the floor, but looked shaky whenever he came out in the second half. They are 35-12 with O’Neal in the starting lineup, 7-6 without him.

Jackson is serious about securing home-court advantage. It showed when he sent O’Neal back into the game early in the fourth quarter against Houston on Sunday, at a point where earlier in the season he might have let the reserves see how long they could carry the lead. The time for testing is over. It’s time for winning. As Jackson wrote on the board after the game: “First team to 50 W’s.” Meaning the race is on.

The Lakers got by without Kobe, because they got a little bit more than they expected from O’Neal.

“I think we were unsure about how much energy he’d be able to put into the games,” Derek Fisher said. “I think he was dominating the games in different ways. It’s not necessarily overwhelming energy and outrunning people and out-jumping people. But I think he’s playing a very smart game and really taking his time when he catches it in the post. He’s not really forcing a lot of shots. Every shot that he’s taking is close to the basket.”

Before he left toward Wednesday’s game in Utah--and toward age 30--he said he felt old. He looked it as he limped toward his cart.

The Lakers don’t look like the team that dominated the playoffs last year, either. But O’Neal looks as if he can give it a full go in the playoffs. Which means the Lakers still look like the team to beat.

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