Lakers OK, for a Night

There is normal and there is Laker normal, the local five having pushed the notion of conflict and resolution to three championships, while alternately loving themselves and not, playing well and not, being themselves and not.

The season turned to April only a couple of hours after they beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 110-94, Monday night at Staples Center, and the Lakers were still talking about taking this thing seriously, finding their defensive souls, and gathering something resembling momentum before the regular season is done.

They have eight games left, and they have Shaquille O’Neal, and Kobe Bryant didn’t seem too bothered by the events of the night before, and neither did Phil Jackson. So, on they went, through the latest bit of discomfort, on to the next, the debates so far filling the time between games and then championships.

Served up the Grizzlies, a team that has gone two cities and 16 games without beating the Lakers in Los Angeles, the Lakers leaned on O’Neal, who scored 34 points and took 11 rebounds. The night after he made 11 of 12 shots in a loss in Seattle, O’Neal made 15 of 22 against the Grizzlies. O’Neal has scored at least 30 points in seven of his last nine games.

“We were just doing what we’re supposed to do,” said O’Neal, code for lots of ball movement and entry passes.

The Lakers won their 11th consecutive home game and their 12th consecutive game at Staples. The Grizzlies lost there for the second consecutive night, having lost by two to the Clippers on Sunday at the end of a long weekend hanging around their Beverly Hills hotel.

Bryant scored 29 points, 11 in the fourth quarter. He had six steals, matching his career high. He also had eight assists, renewing his role as playmaker/scorer. Or, is it scorer/playmaker?

They have two weeks to decide, and it’s still hard to keep track.

After saying he thought Bryant played well in the second half, when he had 17 points and four assists, Jackson added, “There’s nothing I really want to see from Kobe. I want the game to dictate it to him. It’s just really reading the situation and doing the right thing. I thought the second half he started doing things a lot better.”

Bryant, they’re quite sure, won’t be their problem come the postseason. His game was disjointed Sunday in Seattle, where the Lakers lost by 21 points and perhaps blew a real chance to move into fourth or fifth place in the Western Conference seeding. As it is, they are in seventh, a half-game behind the Utah Jazz.

Bryant was more involved in the offense against the Grizzlies, and afterward confirmed that he was more comfortable, though it’s clear he’s not enjoying the game-by-game analysis of it.

“It’s building,” he said. “I think you guys can see the difference, me being in the attack mode as opposed to being in the playmaker mode.

“If I didn’t go on that huge scoring binge [in February], you guys wouldn’t know what I’m capable of doing, and this topic wouldn’t even come up.”

The issue, Bryant insisted Monday, had less to do with how often he shot the ball or got to the free-throw line than the 119 points they all allowed. It’s been the reasonable deduction all season, given their inability to defend jump shots, in particular. It appears they’ll go October to April with the worst three-point defense in the league.

The Lakers always look grayest in Seattle, it seems. Twenty-four hours after their meltdown in the Northwest, the Lakers showed up for the ever dangerous second game of the back-to-back and looked capable again. Slava Medvedenko started at power forward, his first start since Feb. 19. He had 11 points and six rebounds. Derek Fisher scored 10 points.

O’Neal was cranky anyway. First he’s annoyed the Lakers didn’t do more to recognize his 20,000th career point after his ball was defaced, and then it galled him when the organization went all out on a Michael Jordan tribute.

He just assumed, you know, maybe the Lakers could find a clip or two of him doing something. These things are important to O’Neal.

“It’s OK, though,” he said. “I’ll remember that.”