State of the Union

On the afternoon before Game 4, Shaquille O’Neal sat on a padded table in a back room of the visitor’s locker room at the Alamodome while his teammates practiced.

He looked a little sad.

Two red wires ran from a black box to his left ankle, and as he spoke he flicked his thumbnail at the half-dozen or so stitches on the last crease of his right forefinger.

“I’m not angry at all,” he said.

Quiet for going on a week, O’Neal had a few things to say about his relationship with Phil Jackson, the state of his game, and all that ails him. Displeased with a once-sturdy body that has failed him in so many small places, he sat and talked from behind soft brown eyes for as long as the questions came on Saturday afternoon, and as trainer Gary Vitti soothed his aching parts. O’Neal was treated for sprains in both ankles, though the left is considered more severe.

“Me and Phil will always be OK,” he said. “Phil’s just the president, I’m the general. We have a competitive locker room and that’s how it’s going to be.”

He said the locker room, their personalities, and the nature of their three-peat desires allow discussions like the one they had earlier this week, in which Jackson attempted to determine O’Neal’s fitness and O’Neal bristled.

“And it’ll never turn into what [Allen] Iverson and Larry Brown are going through,” O’Neal said. “That’s nothing against Iverson. I think he’s a great player. But I’m the type of person that I won’t let it go that far, because when you’re dealing with rank, even if your superior officer is wrong, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Or, you get penalized. If he says something for psychological reasons, I say something for psychological reasons. But, it’ll never be serious.

“I don’t have a feud. I respect order. I’m the general. I run the troops. He runs the government. We have a very competitive government. He’s going to say some things, I’m going to say some things back. His rank is higher than mine, but my rank still has power too.”

No one really called it a feud, but there was a tiff, and it bled into Game 3, won by the Lakers on Friday night. Up, two games to one, on the San Antonio Spurs in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals, they’ll play Game 4 today at the Alamodome.

The concern now is O’Neal and his left ankle. He took a respectable 15 rebounds on Friday, many without leaving the floor. Downplayed in the days leading to Game3, the sprained ankle slowed O’Neal further, though there seemed to be no doubt he would play today.

The order, from most to least severe: ankle, finger, toe. That’s off from a few days ago, when clearly it was finger, toe, ankle, and from a few days before that, when it was toe, finger, and the swollen ankle was yet a glimmer in Vitti’s eye.

The sum of them all has kept O’Neal closer to the floor, closer to the basket, and closer to the 50% line, in terms of field-goal shooting.

He had 22 points along with the 15 rebounds, a line he called “against my religion.”

Proud, he hates that it appears he is being outplayed in places, or that Malik Rose, or David Robinson, or even Tim Duncan, can play with him over the length of games.

“Am I satisfied? No, of course not, because I’m used to playing at such a high level,” he said. “As long as you guys notice there’s no one outplaying me, as long as you notice it’s not skills versus skills, you know ...

“I’m a couple steps slow, and these other guys are playing with such energy, because they want to beat us. It makes them appear to be good players, when actually they’re not.”

By all appearances, and O’Neal did not disagree, he will carry these injuries for as long as the Lakers play into spring. It seems probably he will have surgery on his arthritic big right toe after the season, and the ankle sprain and finger laceration will heal on their own.

Asked if he can lead them while in this condition, he said, “Hopefully I can. Hopefully I can.”

Kobe Bryant, who had 31 points, six assists and one turnover in 48 minutes on Friday, will have to fill a few of the places O’Neal cannot go.

Robert Horry and Samaki Walker will be a little lonelier on Duncan, and on the next power forward, assuming there is one.

“If my teammates keep playing like they’re playing, they can hold it down while I get my wheels realigned,” O’Neal said, laughing a little for the first time. “I’ve got Gary working on my wheels right now. He’s chroming my rims back up.

“Right now, I’m sitting on some 18-inch aluminums, and I’m used to rolling on some chromed-out dubs. So, right now they’re in the shop getting the chrome back up. I’ll be back on the boulevard in no time.”