Without O’Neal, Lakers Can’t Get Foot in Door

For the Lakers, playing without Shaquille O’Neal has been like having a cellular phone without any air time. It just doesn’t work.

With O’Neal out for at least another week while recovering from toe surgery, the Lakers are finding victories difficult to come by against teams looking to knock off the three-time defending NBA champions.

“Yeah, Phil would probably like to put an asterisk by that, but it doesn’t matter to me. A win is a win,” Portland’s Scottie Pippen said after the Trail Blazers defeated Phil Jackson’s Lakers on Wednesday. “Obviously, we didn’t play the Lakers at their best, but every game is important to win.”

Losing without O’Neal is nothing new for Kobe Bryant and Co. After beating the Clippers, 108-93, Friday night at Staples Center, the Lakers are 14-14 without the world’s most dominating player in the lineup since Jackson took over as head coach in 1999.

According to Stats Inc., since the start of the 1999-2000 season, the Lakers have averaged 101.8 points when O’Neal played and 92.8 when he didn’t, not counting Friday’s game. They also average nearly two more rebounds and one extra blocked shot and have a 168-52 record with O’Neal in the lineup.

Samaki Walker, Soumaila Samake and Slava Medvedenko may be decent role players, but they cannot come close to filling O’Neal’s enormous shoes. No one can.

But the Lakers, who are also without suspended forward Rick Fox, still have to play the games, and they’ve made a few offensive adjustments to help hold them over until O’Neal gets back. More players cutting without the ball, more quick passes from one side to the other and more Bryant, who was prepared for the challenge after adding 15 pounds of muscle during the off-season.

“They are running Kobe to the post a little bit more,” a Western Conference assistant coach said Friday. “Where Shaq would dip his shoulder and go from one side of the block to the other to get the ball, they have Kobe posting up and he comes mainly from the wing area. He’ll cut off from the weak side and go to the strong-side block to get a few more post opportunities.”

In the Lakers’ season-opening loss to San Antonio, Bryant took 29 shots, many of them after he had his back to the basket. This tactic can be effective, but Bryant struggled in that game, missing 20 shots against the Spurs, who picked their spots when to double-team him.

It’s no secret that the Lakers look for Bryant more when O’Neal is not on the floor, and the triangle offense allows him to get the ball in various ways.

“They also seem to run more pick-and-roll plays when they play without O’Neal,” the assistant coach said. “They give the ball to Kobe and let him create off a high screen. They did that a lot against [San Antonio center Tim] Duncan. Kobe is so good at attacking big guys, this has worked well for them.”

Bryant, however, has been criticized for playing too selfishly. Charley Rosen, a former coach in the Continental Basketball Assn., wrote a recent story for ESPN.com claiming that Bryant abandons the triangle offense and that assistant coach Tex Winter labeled him “uncoachable.”

Bryant disagreed with this characterization Friday, and I agree to a point.

Although Bryant’s shots always increase when O’Neal is out, he seems to be finding better ways to get the ball to teammates than he has in the past. He posted a triple-double Friday, with 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists. Until Friday, however, his teammates were not making their shots. The Lakers shot 31.8% from the field against the Spurs, 41.2% against the Trail Blazers and 45.9% against the Clippers.

“Kobe is so dangerous when he creates and gets into the middle,” the Western Conference assistant coach said. “He gets people open shots and with people like [Derek] Fisher, [Robert] Horry and Tracy Murray, they have the ability to knock them down.”

The Lakers’ biggest problem when they play without O’Neal is not Bryant. It’s the fact that the team has been built around two superstars, and when you take one away, the role players are exposed.

Look at what has happened when they have tried to go back to their normal triangle attack. Medvedenko is usually in the game when the Lakers dump the ball into the post, but the offense is simply not the same.

“People just have to understand that [O’Neal] makes all the difference in the world for their offense,” the assistant coach said. “He’s that good. He makes everything look a whole lot smoother.”

Defensively, the Lakers have not changed much structurally without O’Neal. They still try to force pick-and-roll plays to the baseline, and their big men don’t wander too far from the basket.

But the Lakers still miss O’Neal’s presence in the middle. Opponents are not afraid to drive into the lane and take the ball to the basket because they do not fear the Lakers’ backup big men.

Walker, Samake and Medvedenko, along with Horry, can block shots like O’Neal but they are not intimidating. When opposing players drive on O’Neal, they always have to think about getting roughed up because of his size and aggressiveness. An elbow here, a hip check there, it’s all part of the game for O’Neal, who is the best in the league at taking full advantage of his body in the paint.

“San Antonio ran a lot of high pick-and-rolls against the Lakers,” the assistant coach said. “By doing that, the Lakers didn’t really have anywhere to push the guard with the ball.”

But before Laker fans get too worked up, they should realize that O’Neal’s return is right around the corner and in the long run, they may end up being a more complete team from the experience they gained playing without him.

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The Replacements

A look at the players who have started in place of Laker center Shaquille O’Neal in the 26 games he has missed in the last three seasons (statistics from regular season):

*--* Player Season Pts Reb John Salley 1999-2000 1.6 1.4 Greg Foster 2000-01 2.0 1.8 Samaki Walker 2001-02 6.7 7.0

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Note: Soumaila Samake started the season opener against San Antonio Tuesday and Walker started the last two games, including Friday’s game against the Clippers.