Shaq Takes a Page Out of Past

En route to Saturday’s basketball game, somewhere on the short stretch between downtown and Arco Arena on Interstate 5, presumably, Shaquille O’Neal’s two-way pager rang.

From Rick Fox, a few rows ahead on the luxury bus, the message reminded him to hurry back on defense.

O’Neal grunted and put the device back in his pocket.

Several hours later, after the Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings, 106-99, in the first of the best-of-seven-game Western Conference finals, Fox’s pager buzzed.

The message from O’Neal: “Don’t worry about what I’m doing.”

Fox laughed.

It was a different O’Neal who got after the Kings in Game 1. He ran hard, he blocked four shots, he changed a handful of others, despite only a little relief from several injuries. After the Kings spent the week talking about pushing the tempo, and about the strain it would put on O’Neal’s feet and fitness, it was O’Neal who beat Vlade Divac to the baseline, and O’Neal who often outran Scot Pollard down the floor.

He got back on defense.

“That is the key to this series, if you want to break it down to its simplest form,” Fox said. “If we can get Shaq back to the paint, along with [power forwards] Samaki [Walker] and Robert [Horry] ... it allows us perimeter players to close out on their shooters a little quicker. It allows us to recover defensively. He can control that, just by the focus of getting back.”

The series resumes tonight at Arco, where the Lakers will play to take two games at the raucous and supposedly impenetrable arena in the meadow. Fact is, the Lakers have won six of their last seven games here, including their last three playoff games.

“If we win the second game,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson had said Saturday evening, “we know we’ve got them by the throat a little bit.”

The focus of the Lakers had not changed in eight previous playoff games, seven of them victories, in series against Portland and San Antonio. They played off O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, just a little more off of Bryant than usual.

O’Neal’s ankles were sore and his toe was raw, and then his finger was cut. His mediocre regular season--mediocre for him--was becoming a mediocre postseason. Again, for him.

Then began the conference finals, and O’Neal ran shoulder to shoulder with the other centers, and when Jackson figured he’d rest O’Neal for a few extra minutes at the start of the fourth quarter Saturday, O’Neal asked back into the game. He played 42 minutes and scored 26 points. Together, Divac and Pollard played 50 minutes and scored 16.

“Right now, I’m just pacing myself,” O’Neal said. “I’m just doing what’s needed. The first year, it was all about me scoring 40 points a game for us to win. Last year, a little bit of everybody was doing it. This year, it’s Kobe doing it, and I just got Kobe’s back.

“So, I’m just trying to play good defense on the pick-and-roll and get back on defense. I’m just doing whatever’s asked of me.”

Surrounded by cameras and notepads he would have ducked last week, O’Neal laughed easily. Teammates have noticed the same personality shift, back to the breezy, playful moods he carried before the injuries, before the Indocin fouled his stomach and the constant ache fouled his game.

It could be that O’Neal is experiencing less pain, in part because he had three days off between series. The ankle sprains are healed or healing, and he can feel the texture of the basketball on his right forefinger again. The toe, of course, probably won’t be right until surgery, which he probably will have this summer.

“He felt a little bit better,” Laker guard Brian Shaw said. “I think he felt challenged a little bit more because of all of the talking that was being done. And the fact that this is going to be one of the highest-rated series in a while [for television]--at least that’s what I think. When it’s that kind of stage, Shaq wants to be the star of the show.”

The Lakers were dominant when he was, winning 15 of 16 playoff games last year. While the postseason hasn’t been as fluid this spring, nor as decisive, the Lakers are into their third series, up a road game on the Kings, and O’Neal appears to be just getting started.

Said Horry: “I think he can see the light at the end of the tunnel. He knows we’re close to going back to the Finals. This is him doing something that a lot of players don’t get a chance to do. If he can get back to these Finals, he’s going to really be put up there as an elite player, especially all the trouble he had this year with feet, toes, ankles, shoes, finger, that stuff. They’re going to say he overcame all these adversities to get back.”

And he’s getting much better at getting back.