With Series Tied, It’s Whole New Ballgame

Oh, this is actually going to be a series?

The Lakers are going home to face their greatest opponent-- themselves--in the comfort and splendor of their very own Staples Center.

Of course, Laker fans can’t be expected to do anything as declasse as going to feed stores to buy cowbells. Nevertheless, they’ll be enthusiastic in their own way. As John Lennon said at the Beatles’ Royal Command Performance before the Queen, “Would the people in the cheap seats clap your hands, and the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.”

A different King team showed up Monday night, from the opening tip

O’Neal wound up with 35, missing eight of his 12 shots in the second half. Divac wound up with 15 points and 14 rebounds and the Kings survived to fight another day.

“What I do?” asked Divac, the old Laker favorite, after another night of being thrown around like a rag doll by the present Laker center. “Anything. Just hope he’s gonna miss.

“No strategy against Shaq. He’s gonna score his points. Hopefully, you can draw double-teams and make him pass the ball but when you do that, then other guys get involved. It’s hard....

“I can’t push him out. You see that play they run from out of bounds when he goes in the middle? When timeout is over, I’m running to get there before him because if he gets there before me--what I said about Utah in the first series, they’re done? Then I’m done.”

Well, Divac may be on the endangered list and the Kings may have their work cut out, but they’re not done yet.

After going against the big, hard-nosed Spurs, O’Neal was making little secret of his comfort zone against the Kings, repeatedly noting, as he did again between games, that the Lakers “know what it takes to win against certain teams.”

This was a nice way of saying: These guys are soft inside and that’s where I play.

For their part, the Kings were besieged with more helpful hints than they wanted. Chris Webber was advised to take his outside game inside. Coach Rick Adelman was advised to start Bobby Jackson for Hedo Turkoglu, who had missed all eight of his shots in Game 1, going scoreless.

Of course, his teammates were there for him.

“He played like a dead man,” said Scot Pollard between games, laughing. “... I expect him to play much better. If he scores one point, that’s better.”

When Turkoglu took his first shot, midway through Monday night’s first quarter, you could hear Arco Arena hold its breath. When he missed, there was an audible “Ohhhhhhhhh.”

Turkoglu also missed his next two, leaving him with an 0-for still working late in the first half, when he finally knocked down a 20-footer, giving him two more points in the series than a dead man would have scored.

Turkoglu wound up with eight and five teammates scored in double figures.

Meanwhile, O’Neal, a monster in the first half, struggled in the second. Kobe Bryant, the king of the Laker fourth quarters, faded in this one.

The Kings, who had to have this game, got it, as surely as the Lakers, who needed to get one here, won the opener. Laker Coach Phil Jackson, asked later if urgency had been the key in both games, said, simply, “Yes.”

Of course, Kobe did bang in a late three-pointer, cutting the King lead, which had once been 15 points, down to 93-90 with 12 seconds left, but for the Lakers, that was as good as it would get.

“You don’t want to know what was going through my mind,” Adelman said. “He’s one of those guys, you just don’t think he’s going to do the things he does.

“He shot it and I said, ‘It’s good, let’s get the ball in bounds.’ I’ve seen it too many times.”

With the series going back to Staples Center, the Lakers would seem to have the advantage. The problem for them lies in the fact they have played all their best games on the road, where they seem to feel some urgency, while trailing in the second half of four of the five they’ve played at home, while waiting for the other team to flee at the sight of them.

Jackson, asked after Game 1 if his players, whom he had pronounced “underdogs,” were now favorites again, answered, “We haven’t played that great at home so let’s let sleeping dogs lie.”

These puppies are awake and the Laker roll, if not over, has cooled down. After going six for 12 on three-pointers in the first half of Game 1, they went 0 for eight in the second half and three for 19 Monday, meaning they had missed 27 of their last 30 from beyond the arc.

A little sense of urgency is sure to come in handy in Game 3. Let’s see who has some.