So Far, Hurt So Good for the Lakers

We return you now to the adventures of Superman, Spider-Man, Kobe Bryant and the Super Friends, hurting but up a game in the Western Conference semifinals, facing their shortest turnaround of the postseason and against the San Antonio Spurs, who might add a seven-footer one of these nights.

Suddenly these feel like the playoffs, and the Lakers worked in earnest Monday morning to mend Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant and their overall game, which hasn’t looked particularly fluid for going on a couple of weeks now. They play Game 2 tonight at Staples Center, where Bryant is expected to play on a right knee that will be sore at best, of little use at the worst.

“I’m definitely going to play,” he said. “It’s a matter of getting it under control and trying to treat the pain as much as possible.”

Bryant, who suffered a bruise on the inside of his right knee just below the joint, did not practice Monday and even declined an invitation by Coach Phil Jackson to shoot some free throws, extended in part to make light of Bryant’s six misses the night before.

“He still didn’t find any humor in it,” Jackson said. “He was still in his knee, I think. He wasn’t in his head.”

O’Neal, who was wounded twice and required stitches both times Sunday, once per super alter ego, participated in parts of a light practice.

He did not address the media and probably won’t be happy to hear he isn’t the NBA most valuable player for a second consecutive year. Various reports had the expected: that O’Neal will finish third, behind Tim Duncan and Jason Kidd, in that order.

Fortunate that Bruce Bowen’s sneaker toe did not land a little higher, where it would have severely limited his flexibility, Bryant arrived in El Segundo feeling only moderate pain, and even that subsided after therapy. He experienced stiffness after sitting for a short period, however, and avoiding that will be Jackson’s focus tonight.

Bryant has played through various ailments and injuries in the last several years, often performing his best when apparently physically limited.

“I think he’ll play as well [as usual], probably,” Jackson said. “I think I’ll play him longer minutes. He’s a mid-40-, early 40-minute player, but I’ll probably have to play him longer, just to watch that he doesn’t cool off so much that when he doesn’t come back on the court he’s stiff.

“I expect Shaq will be somewhat close to be capable of playing. Now, whether he reopens the cuts or not, that’s something entirely different. But, he should have enough healing there to have some feeling back in his finger.”

The day on Nash Street was considerably brighter after O’Neal and Bryant showed up feeling somewhat capable and very optimistic about Game 2. Jackson, after telling his players he’d never had a playoff team perform so poorly for a half, had slapstick routines spliced into Sunday’s game film. That would be Shemp playing the knucklehead after one of the nine first-half turnovers, a cake in the face somewhere along in their 39% shooting, and, well, that’s the general idea.

“What I did say that was really positive is that they were competitive, they were tough, their defense was aggressive, they came up with loose balls,” Jackson said. “They were too headstrong for their own good in the first half. They got it across in the second half as to how to help themselves out, and how to help the other team out.

“They tried to do it on their own. Everybody was trying to do it by themselves rather than playing together in a system ... that creates shots for each other if they sacrifice themselves in the offense.”

The Lakers at times have lost the feel for their triangle offense, which often has left O’Neal and/or Bryant with the basketball and time running down. Fortunately for them, they’ve played enough defense to hold on and win.

“Our system is almost like a football team,” Derek Fisher said. “If you’re running a dive right and the fullback goes left, it messes up the whole system.”

Take Fisher, for example. He missed six three-pointers in eight attempts in Game 1. Last year, in four games against the Spurs, he missed five, in 20 attempts. He’s not necessarily the one going left, but when the Lakers talk about flow, they most often are talking about keeping their supporting cast--Fisher, Rick Fox, Robert Horry, Brian Shaw--in it.

“The rest of us,” Fisher said, “are living off the rhythm our team has.”

It’s a funny thing about these Lakers, tough enough again to win while not at their best. After every postseason game they’ve played--three against Portland, one Sunday--the other coach and players have rued their own poor play and their rotten shooting and the misfortune of one bounce or another.

Coincidence, maybe. But, maybe they’re on that season-opening 16-1 run, where they griped about how badly they were playing while winning almost every night for six weeks. Then they lost for a while.

“I don’t know,” Bryant said. “I don’t remember.”

Clearly, these playoffs are not going to pass as easily as last year’s, when 15-1 brought the title.

“We really have to forget about last year, what we did last year,” Bryant said. “This is a new year. It’s going to be a new path that we take to defend our championship. We have to accept that.”

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Lakers-Spurs

*--* The Lakers have won five of seven playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs: Year Result Round 1982 Lakers win, 4-0 Third 1983 Lakers win, 4-2 Third 1986 Lakers win, 3-0 First 1988 Lakers win, 3-0 First 1995 Spurs win, 4-2 Second 1999 Spurs win, 4-0 Second 2001 Lakers win, 4-0 Third

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