And Away They Go

By TIM BROWN

May 17, 2002 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

When it darkens in Portland, when the motorcycle roars in Sacramento, when the music blares in San Antonio, Rick Fox usually is sitting on the press table beside the Laker bench, rocking gently, his eyes closed, his head who knows where.

When the public-address announcer shrieks the names of the other five, Kobe Bryant picks through the plastic tray of gum, looking for Bazooka. Last weekend in San Antonio, when the crowd was its most hysterical and the sound effects at their most obnoxious, Bryant read the comic, then the fortune, as if he were alone in his childhood bedroom.

Shaquille O’Neal, larger than anything on the arenas’ big video boards and typically unimpressed by the array of fireworks and theme songs from above and the insults from behind, typically stands near the corner of the floor, his warmup zipped to his chin, his eyes on his toes.

It is a different life on the road, where buildings fill first to get a glimpse of the Lakers, then to see them lose, and to see Bryant fail and O’Neal miss and the home team’s players hug each other so gratefully.

“It’s fun to play on the road,” Bryant said. “Everybody’s against you. The home team is playing with more confidence and you have to elevate your game as a result. We’ve been able to do that.”

A so-so road team for much of the regular season, the Lakers became the best playoff traveling team in the history of the league, of any league, in any major professional sport. They take an 11-game postseason road winning streak into Saturday’s game in Sacramento, a run that began in Portland last year and was extended again Sunday in San Antonio.

It has proceeded by the length of a 22-point victory in Sacramento last year and by the breadth of Robert Horry’s three-pointer nearly three weeks ago in Portland. It progressed by 12 points to win their second consecutive NBA title on a Friday night in Philadelphia, by Bryant’s put-back Sunday in San Antonio.

For more than a year and nearly a dozen playoff games, since a 120-87 loss at Indiana in Game 5 of the 2000 NBA Finals, not a single home fan has gone home happy when the Lakers have worn their purple, other than the ones Bryant occasionally consoles on his way off the floor.

Through cowbells and screaming drunks and flying rubber balls and hurled profanities and clever signs, through Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson and Rasheed Wallace and Chris Webber all walking out of their homes and driving their cars to their gyms, the Lakers are 11-0.

The 1991-92 Chicago Bulls and 1995-96 Houston Rockets each won eight consecutive road playoff games. The Lakers had eight going into these playoffs.

“It’s focus,” Horry said Thursday afternoon. “That’s all.”

The Lakers can’t agree why this streak has grown. Fox believes it is the defense. Brian Shaw said the road, those endless nights of Four Seasons hotels and chartered luxury jets, hardens them and draws them closer. Phil Jackson said the Lakers play a more conservative game in unfamiliar environs, so are less prone to errors. Derek Fisher said they play well from memory, that they have gained strength from their previous achievements away from home.

Probably, it is all of those, and a little luck. Scottie Pippen didn’t get out on Horry. Jackson was ejected from Game 2 in San Antonio last season and, so inspired, the Lakers came back from a double-digit deficit. The Spurs couldn’t make a fourth-quarter shot for an entire weekend. It goes on.

“We’ve figured out a way to win,” Fisher said. “Not just on Kobe’s back. Not just on Shaq’s back. Not just with a three from the corner from Robert Horry. A number of different ways.”

In the last two seasons, 16 playoff games last year and eight this year, the Lakers have shot better on the road (46.4% in 11 games) than at home (45.5% in 13 games). At the same time, the Laker defense has held its foes to the identical shooting percentage at home as well as the road--40.4%.

Away from Staples Center, the Lakers shoot three-pointers better (42.9% to 32.7%), turn over the ball fewer times (12.3 to 14.1) and score more in the fourth quarter (25.8 to 24.8).

They also give the basketball to Bryant more.

“It’s a very important part,” Jackson said. “Another important part, we know that Shaq gets charging fouls on the road, three-second calls on the road. You have every fan standing up screaming in these officials’ ears, trying to help them out. He’s got to play a much more confined game when he goes on the road, which gives Kobe more latitude.”

In these last two postseasons, Bryant has made more shots (11.3 to 8.7), taken more shots and averaged more points (30.9 to 26.2) on the road. He has led the Lakers in scoring in eight of the 11 road wins.

Conversely, O’Neal averages 25.1 points in road games, more than five points fewer than at Staples Center.

So they stand on the verge of two games in three days at Arco Arena, where the hatred is more brassy than the bells. They won twice there last spring, in games two and three of a streak that has since grown by eight. This is why, when the Kings danced over their home-court advantage, when their center, Vlade Divac, predicted doom for the Lakers because of it, the Lakers were unmoved. In the near past, they have won these games, they have stolen these crowds, they have burned these buildings.

“The confidence lies in knowing what you do, or what you’re capable of doing, is still there,” Fox said.

Bryant, ever courageous, shrugged.

“It’s nothing but noise,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Road Warriors

A look at the Lakers’ road win streak in the playoffs:

2001

1. April 29: 99-86 over Portland (first round)

2. May 11: 103-81 over Sacramento (Conf. semifinals)

3. May 13: 119-113 over Sacramento (Conf. semifinals)

4. May 19: 104-90 over San Antonio (Conf. finals)

5. May 21: 88-81 over San Antonio (Conf. finals)