It’s Up to Shaq to Keep Them Moving Forward

Those were the familiar O’Neals at Staples Center on Sunday, in uniform and in the stands.

There was Shaquille cracking jokes in the players’ lounge before the game, asserting himself from the opening tip, and mumbling complaints about his lack of touches in the offense afterward.

There was his wife, Shaunie, back in her location across the court from the Lakers’ bench eight days after giving birth to their third child (and not looking any different for it).

“I told him they lost last time because I wasn’t here,” Shaunie said.

Shaquille likes it when people are in their usual places. He makes Devean George absorb a flying body block from him before every game because O’Neal played well the first time he did it.

The Lakers like it when O’Neal is in the paint, dunking on people, swatting shots and snatching rebounds.

“It’s always a good sign for us when that happens,” George said.

O’Neal led the Lakers in every major category with 34 points, 23 rebounds and six assists in Game 4 Sunday. His tip-in of a Kobe Bryant miss with 19.1 seconds remaining helped the Lakers secure a 102-97 victory and even their first-round playoff series with the Minnesota Timberwolves at two games apiece.

Yet there wasn’t much joy in their victory. Coach Phil Jackson kept bringing up the stretches where they didn’t play well, and for once he didn’t sound like a coach just looking for ways to keep his team sharp. Kobe Bryant was subdued, describing the team’s mood as “Not high, not low, just normal.”

And O’Neal launched into the type of beef we usually hear after a regular-season loss in Seattle or Houston or somewhere.

“I’ve just got to get the ball in position where I can do something,” he said. “I really can’t make my move when I get a [bad] pass, I’ve got three guys on me. Give me the ball where I can do something.

“We’ve been playing together six, seven years. They should know how to do it, do it every time.”

He scored 15 of the Lakers’ first 21 points. He rebounded missed shots -- both others’ and his own -- and dunked. He went to more and more of his usual moves.

By then he was feelin’ it; he also knocked down a turnaround baseline jumper.

“Once the game started and he started banging it inside, it was obvious what we needed to do,” Brian Shaw said.

In case they needed any more reminders, O’Neal screamed, “Give me the ... ball!” after one first-quarter dunk.

O’Neal had 15 points, eight rebounds and a blocked shot in the first quarter, but he exerted so much energy that he needed a breather. Jackson made the right move by calling for a substitute with the Lakers up by eight inside of two minutes left, with the belief that he could buy his center some rest and still emerge with the lead at the end of the quarter.

Didn’t work out that way. The Timberwolves ripped off nine consecutive points to go ahead, 26-25.

O’Neal clearly had Minnesota’s attention by the time he returned, and he exploited the extra defenders sent his way by passing out to Bryant and Shaw for three-pointers.

But after Shaw’s basket the Lakers didn’t get a point for the next 7 1/2 minutes.

O’Neal can’t place the blame elsewhere for all of that slide. He took five shots in the second quarter, the most among the Lakers, and missed four.

Also, the Timberwolves have done a good job throughout the series of denying O’Neal by either fronting him or using a now-legal second defender before he has the ball, and they got back to that defense.

O’Neal believes the solution is more awareness and sharper passing.

“As soon as I’m open, I would like to have it,” O’Neal said.

It appeared that he and Bryant had everything together after they talked Saturday about the team’s need to go inside.

But Bryant still wound up taking more shots than O’Neal in the second half (12 from the field and 15 free throws, versus 12 and six).

O’Neal appeared to have better success following the advice of his wife.

“She just told me to get it and go for what I know,” O’Neal said.

There has been a feeling among those in and around the Lakers that there’s nothing wrong with the team that a motivated and active O’Neal couldn’t fix.

He made only 10 of 26 shots during Game 3, when he was moving laterally on many of his attempts. He’s much better when his momentum takes him toward the basket, which was the direction he headed Sunday.

That’s one reason he scored so well despite missing half of his shots -- he was in position to grab the rebound and go back up for a dunk.

O’Neal is feeling better after a tumultuous six-day stretch in which his grandfather Sirlester died, his son Shaqir was born and he made a round trip to South Carolina between Games 1 and 2 in Minneapolis. He’s rested and his week-old son isn’t keeping him awake at night.

“He knows better,” O’Neal said.

With Rick Fox’s strained ankle jeopardizing his availability for Game 5 and Bryant’s shoulder limiting his shooting range, the burden shifts to O’Neal’s back.

If Bryant’s jammed rotator cuff is so bad that he said he sometimes loses feeling in it, and his confidence in his jumper so shaky that Jackson said he doesn’t trust it, then O’Neal has to take on even more responsibility.

“Bring the ball and throw it to me,” he said. “Every time. Once I get the ball, then I’ll do what I do.”

The Lakers know where to find him.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.