Lakers Defend Their Honor

Kobe Bryant felt the doubt. The uneasiness. The fear.

Not his.

Yours.

“People were kind of counting us out in L.A. Looking at this road trip, everybody was kind of scared,” he said Friday night after the Lakers defeated the Sacramento Kings, 124-113, at Arco Arena, their first game here since winning Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

They won in Phoenix on Wednesday night, then two nights later brought an offense-heavy game against the Kings, whose growing list of injured players include All-Star Chris Webber and handful Bobby Jackson.

Bryant scored 38 points. He cut his lower lip in the second quarter and afterward, as the blood clotted, as the victory set among all of them, he smiled and said he sensed the people in the Kobe jerseys and purple wigs were beginning to wonder.

“Everybody was really nervous,” he said. “Everybody was pretty nervous about the game. I was excited about it. I love this kind of stuff.”

Bryant is the sort who stands among crises and pretends not to notice. So, it came as no surprise, apparently, when the Lakers scored a season high for points, when Shaquille O’Neal scored 36 points (and made 12 of 13 free throws) and when Rick Fox scored nine fourth-quarter points.

In a season largely lacking on-court balance, the Lakers skipped the defense but shot 50.6% from the floor, and got help from Devean George (10 points) and Brian Shaw (seven points in 11 minutes) off the bench. They chose to outscore the Kings in a place where the Kings had lost only three previous games, so they took the basketball from the net as Peja Stojakovic scored 36 and Mike Bibby scored 21 and ran back up the floor and shot again.

They scored 35 points in the fourth quarter, the most in the final period since they scored 44 against the Dallas Mavericks going on two months ago, when they came from 27 points down. But the Lakers, visions of their four-peat hazy as ever, really had little choice. They are 21-23, 3 1/2 games out of the final playoff position, and more than a few of them could be playing to avoid the trade that sends them to Atlanta or Memphis or some other basketball netherworld.

“We can’t lose any more ground,” Shaw said. “We just played loose and with a lot of freedom. So, when you get up and down, I’m sure it wasn’t Phil’s game plan, but we had it going tonight.”

It will be a difficult victory to define, considering the Kings’ injuries and that they won Thursday night in Seattle, meaning they played and flew while the Lakers dined and slept.

“This Kings’ team is depleted,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “They still made us play them hard. We had to fight for this game.”

Which would explain Bryant’s lip, and O’Neal’s sweat, and Fox’s clenched fists.

“We’ve been undermanned all year,” O’Neal said. “We haven’t been healthy all year, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.”

No one wept for the Shaq-less Lakers. The Lakers would not for the Kings.

“We couldn’t in any way lose this game,” Fox said, “considering their circumstances.”

The Kings are thinking positioning for the playoffs and returning to health, the Lakers thinking about playing well enough to get there, to get back here. So, from a 96-95 lead early in the fourth quarter, the Lakers scored the next seven points and the Kings were never again closer than five points.

The Lakers were here desperate for a win. And while the jerseys change and not much else, the Kings bring crisp memories and different challenges. The Lakers eliminated the Kings in the postseason in each of their three consecutive championships, and they’d won seven of their last 10 games at Arco.

Webber, who had been gathering MVP momentum, sat on the King bench. He has a sprained ankle. Jackson sat nearby. He broke his hand on Christmas Day at Staples Center and hasn’t played since.

The Kings also lacked backup center Scot Pollard, who suffered a broken hand this week, meaning Keon Clark spent some long, hard minutes on O’Neal.

O’Neal made 12 of 22 field-goal attempts, most of them over Clark or Vlade Divac.

“Our guys put it out there, but Kobe and Shaq were terrific,” King Coach Rick Adelman said. “What else can you say? They had all the answers.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Long Road Back

The team with the worst record to make Western Conference playoffs last season finished 44-38. How the Lakers need to finish the season to reach that record:

*--* WINS LOSSES TO REACH 44 38 CURRENT 21 23 MUST GO 23 15 Games out of playoff spot...3 1/2

*--*

*

*--* That Had to Hurt Sacramento’s laundry list of injuries this season with games missed. The Kings were without Chris Webber and Bobby Jackson: PLAYER MISSED DATES Brent Price 48 Oct 29--Jan. 31 Scot Pollard 42 Nov. 2--Jan. 23, Jan. 30-31 M. Cleaves 29 Oct. 29--De.c 10; Dec. 19--28 Mike Bibby 27 Nov. 29--Dec. 17 Bobby Jackson 18 Dec. 15, Dec. 28--Jan. 31 L. Funderburke 11 Dec. 4--10, Jan. 21--31 Peja Stojakovic 10 Nov. 15, Nov. 23--Dec. 8 Hedo Turkoglu 8 Nov. 5, Nov. 29-Dec. 10 Chris Webber 7 Oct. 31, Nov. 2-3, Jan. 4-5, Jan. 30-31 Keon Clark 1 Nov. 6 Vlade Divac 1 Nov. 5 Damon Jones 1 Dec. 21 Gerald Wallace 1 Nov. 17

*--*

Games missed because of injuries: 204. The Lakers have missed 74 games this season (Jannero Pargo, 27).