Shaq May Not Catch a Break

With slightly more than five weeks left in the regular season, the Lakers are less adamant about resting Shaquille O’Neal’s troublesome big toe before the playoffs. Coach Phil Jackson also said that when the time for the decision comes, he is as likely to gauge the teams behind the Lakers in the West as those ahead of them.

The Lakers have lost one more game than the Pacific Division- and conference-leading Sacramento Kings have, and have two games remaining against them.

Though Vlade Divac, who rivals Patrick Ewing in the field of cheap predictions, said the Lakers would require home-court advantage to get past the Kings, Jackson implied that Games 1 and 2 in Sacramento do not frighten him. The Lakers won twice in Sacramento in last season’s playoffs, but those were Games 3 and 4, by which time the Kings appeared to have lost their zeal for the series.

“One to five is not a very big slide in this conference,” Jackson said. “You want home-court for [at least] a couple rounds.”

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In the meantime, Jackson would love to see O’Neal shed some girth and regain mobility in the next 21 games, and keeping him on the court might be the best way--or the only way--to do that. O’Neal’s arthritic big toe limits his practice time.

“I think his conditioning is better,” Jackson said. “Obviously, we’ve got to get him to lose some weight ... simply because of the stress on his toe.”

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There are points best made without a cruelty factor, a notion that struck Jackson on Friday morning, not long into a lesson about turnovers.

Perturbed by the two dozen lapses in judgment, motor skills and conscience in an eight-point loss in Utah, Jackson planned to rub the Laker noses in every single one.

“I made up a video of all 24 turnovers and subsequently how they scored 30-something points off [them],” he said Sunday. “But, after reconsidering the vindictive nature of my character flaw, I rescinded after showing them the first couple.”

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Tim Brown