Road-Court Advantage

When it was finally over, or near enough to it that his aching feet would carry him there, Shaquille O’Neal left the basketball court gladly.

Kobe Bryant looked over and smiled sweetly, and he curled his hand into a fist, as if to say he were proud of a long, difficult effort for the 350-pounder.

Playing near the edge of their three-peat hopes, the Lakers defeated the San Antonio Spurs, 99-89, Friday night at the Alamodome, where Bryant scored 31 points and had one turnover in 48 minutes, and O’Neal had just enough on a sprained ankle for 22 points and 15 rebounds.

After shooting 48.8%, they hold a two-games-to-one advantage in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals and retook a home-court advantage lost three nights before. Game 4 is here Sunday.

At the end of 15 lead changes in the first 40 minutes, the Lakers outscored the Spurs, 22-11, in the final eight. In the final quarter, Bryant scored 11 points and didn’t miss in five attempts and Rick Fox scored eight of his 10 points.

“A big mistake a lot of teams make is going on the road hoping to get a split,” Fox said. “We wanted to come in here, play hard and hopefully get every game here.”

In the moments before the game, Bryant worked in a new piece of bubble gum by the Laker bench. As an arena stuffed with 35,520 people shook with excitement--Tim Duncan had just carried his most-valuable-player trophy from the floor, David Robinson had been introduced as the starting center and the Spurs were gathering at midcourt--Bryant calmly unfolded the tiny wax paper and read the comic and the fortune.

When he was done, he smiled and shrugged and pointed his thumbs to the floor, as though the fortune hadn’t brought good news.

Asked about it afterward, he smiled and said, “I don’t remember. But it wasn’t good for them.”

The Spurs lost in the fourth quarter, on their home floor. They lost when their MVP, Duncan, missed 17 of 26 field-goal attempts, and when their former teammate, Samaki Walker, came off the bench and threw in 12 points as the Lakers won their 10th consecutive road playoff game.

But, more so, the Lakers won because Bryant was the best player on the floor. In a late 11-2 run that took the Lakers out of an 81-80 game, Bryant scored seven. Two were on an alley-oop finger roll from Fox, two on a 17-foot turn-around, and two more when he got to the rim again.

“I’ll tell ya,” Robinson said, “Kobe made some tough shots. ... There was good defense on him a lot of times. He just did a great job.”

Much of Bryant’s offense was borne of necessity. O’Neal, who suffered a mild sprain of his left ankle in Game 2, appeared to roll the same ankle in the second quarter. His 15 rebounds should placate Coach Phil Jackson for a couple of days, but they are sure to be days spent treating his ankle, which was re-taped a few times during the game, once during a second-quarter timeout.

O’Neal left without speaking to the media, a boycott of five days.

“Shaq hung in there like I’ve never seen him before,” Derek Fisher said. “He gave us more effort than I’ve seen in a long time.”

After an uneven start in which he missed a few layups, Bryant had his best shooting game of the postseason. When O’Neal missed each of his fourth-quarter attempts, Bryant was better still. In his last three playoff games here, Bryant has scored 45, 28 and 31 points.

“It felt good,” Bryant said. “We had to focus. There were a lot of reports that we were going to lose because of the emotion. We had to center ourselves and play every possession like it was our last.

“I was more centered and focused on all the stuff around me. If you get too emotionally wrapped up in a game, you overlook the little details. You have to step outside the circle.”

Sounds as if Bryant was spending too much time with Jackson. Afterward, he wore a road gray Yankee jersey with Derek Jeter’s No. 2 on the back.

Asked if there was a significance, he laughed and said, “Yeah, he’s a clutch player.”

It was a game played at the sharp end of Laker desperation, after 48 hours when some of them didn’t seem to like each other very much.

They played in all the little corners they often ignored in a season spent figuring they had another championship coming, because two begets three.

The basketball that came was raw, played from the emotions of tight jaws and thrown-back shoulders.

Between the basketball there were double fouls and technical fouls and a flagrant foul. Robinson whacked Robert Horry, and Horry whacked back, or vice versa. Fisher and Spur rookie Tony Parker, who scored 20 points in the first half and four in the second, glared.

The Lakers wore black socks and black shoes, their ritual road footwear of the playoffs, and did the villain thing well.

“We rode our momentum into the fourth quarter and played good defense,” Jackson said. “We stayed with what was working. Kobe had a great game so I didn’t take him out of this game.”