Lakers Ready to Work Until Closing Time

The moment lasted several hours for Kobe Bryant, long enough to board a chartered jet out of San Antonio, long enough to return to Los Angeles surrounded by teammates who appreciate who he is and what he does.

Bryant did not stand alone in beating the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 on Sunday night. He stood tallest, but among them. He made the shot, but Shaquille O’Neal got the rebound, and Derek Fisher got the loose ball, and Rick Fox got the box-out.

They gorged themselves on it, on their three-games-to-one lead in the Western Conference semifinals, on what they all had done in those final frantic seconds, when they pushed and the San Antonio Spurs went to pieces.

Then it was gone, because Game 5, their chance to close out the Spurs with relatively little fuss, comes tonight at Staples Center. A victory would put them into the conference finals against Sacramento, starting Saturday.

“Once I got home,” Bryant said, “I started thinking about [tonight’s] game.”

The Lakers have won six consecutive potential clinchers--Game 6 against Indiana for the 2000 title; Game 3 at Portland, Game 4 at Sacramento, Game 4 versus San Antonio and Game 5 at Philadelphia last year, and Game 3 at Portland 21/2 weeks ago.

They have won most of the difficult playoff games, 11 in a row on the road, 22 of their last 24 overall.

This year alone they’ve won in the final ticks with Robert Horry’s three-pointer in Portland and Bryant’s put-back in San Antonio, immediately followed, respectively, by Scottie Pippen’s turnover and Tim Duncan’s air ball.

They’ve won the fourth quarters, but then they’ve had to, because of their first three quarters.

“We have to play our game and put them away,” O’Neal said. “They’re not going to give up easy. They have a lot of pride.”

Or, as Fox called it, “That understanding that you don’t give somebody life.”

The Lakers tend to games these days with a different slant. O’Neal has a handful of injuries that cause pain when he runs and when he catches the basketball, and he lacks his usual deftness around the basket. Fisher (bruised knee, so he’ll probably wear a pad in Game 5), Fox (sore shooting shoulder) and Samaki Walker (bruised knee) are hurt too, but expected to play without being hindered.

On offense, that leaves Bryant, ever talented, ever ambitious and ever curious.

So the Lakers for the time being go to O’Neal with a little less determination, and clear out for Bryant with a little more regularity. It is, they assume, a temporary condition because of O’Neal’s injuries and Bryant’s vitality.

In the meantime, they pay tribute to their limping big man, who grinds through his days hurt that not enough observers see his pain, injured that they can’t understand his physical limitations, and just plain hurt and injured.

“What I’m really happy about is Shaquille has recognized what he can do for the basketball team,” Coach Phil Jackson said Monday afternoon. “In years past, he’s been the strength and tower of this basketball team. We’ve saddled him up and rode his back. Except for the San Antonio series last year, where we talked to Kobe about being the initiator and carrying the scoring load because they were double-teaming Shaquille without distinction from Duncan and [David] Robinson.

“A lot of it has to do with screen-and-rolls, setting picks, making passes, drawing the defense, guarding Tim Duncan and doing the things that have to be done in order to win a ballgame. About a week ago, he was talking about some of the things that were happening to him. He said, ‘I’m going to have to play defense and rebound now.’ I said, ‘That’s all you have to do for us to win.’ He said, ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you.’”

Jackson laughed.

“I’d like to see him shoot a high percentage in his field goals,” he said. “The reality is, he’s doing enough for us to win.... Not enough for us to blow teams out, that’s for sure, but enough.”

Bryant almost always has the ball in his hands, a gradual transition that means he brings the ball up the floor, initiates the offense and then, at times, runs to the low block, where he has posted Antonio Daniels, among others.

Early in the series, he made threes at the top, sliced to the rim from the wing, and spun for finger rolls from the low post.

Bryant misses too. He has shot 44.6% in the series. But the man misses nine of 10 threes, only to get to the fourth quarter of the fourth game and make two. In 45 seconds. In front of 36,000 people who could just weep over it.

He’s playing so hard, so fast, tears are practically rolling out of the corners of his eyes.

“It’s a fine line,” Bryant said. “It used to be difficult in the past to learn how to have an impact on the game when I’m not shooting the ball well. But I’ve kind of grown into a role where the team trusts me with the basketball making decisions, to set up opportunities in situations on the floor. So I’m able to have much more of an impact when I’m not shooting the ball.”

So the Spurs arrive dismayed, annoyed and frustrated, but knowing they absolutely will not be swept this year, which is something. Only six teams have come from a 3-1 deficit to win a series.

They won Game 2 in Los Angeles seven days ago, however, when the Lakers had won 19 consecutive games at Staples Center. Meanwhile, back in San Antonio, the local paper and townsfolk have dubbed the Spurs chokers for their fourth-quarter shutdowns.

The Lakers wouldn’t believe it.

“If they were playing by themselves and missing shots, maybe you could say they were choking,” Fisher said. “We’ve been much more active late in the games.”