Lakers Make It Indy .500

The Lakers are back ... well, to .500, anyway.

Drawing even at 23-23 for the first time since Nov. 3 when they were 2-2, the three-time defending champion Lakers continued their long-awaited and deferred comeback Tuesday night, defeating the Indiana Pacers, 97-94, to run their winning streak to four games.

Even with key opponents out (Chris Webber at Sacramento, Ron Artest and Coach Isiah Thomas here), the victories were impressive. Starting after home losses to Golden State and New Jersey, the Lakers won in Phoenix, where the Suns were 19-3; at Sacramento, where the Kings were 18-3; defeated the Jazz at home and won in Conseco Fieldhouse, where the Pacers were 22-2.

When they started, the Lakers were 5-15 on the road, No. 10 in the West behind Golden State, and Coach Phil Jackson was musing publicly about his inability to reach his players any more. Now they can go into the All-Star break over .500 by winning their last game, in New York on Thursday, which might not sound like much, unless you saw them their first 11 weeks.

“You always want to point at something to be the penultimate challenge,” Jackson said, “but truly, we knew that we could bury ourselves at this time if we got in any situation where we lost games, where we got four, five down below .500, that we were really going to be in trouble to try to reach a playoff position.

“Because there’s just not enough games to survive those odds. So we knew we at least had to give ourselves the opportunity and this is it.”

In important ways, the Lakers -- now No. 9 in the West, 2 1/2 games behind No. 8 Houston -- remain a work in progress, starting with Shaquille O’Neal, who’s playing harder (19 points, 12 rebounds, seven blocks, despite foul trouble), but is still not his old, dominating self.

However, Kobe Bryant, who scored 35 points against the Pacers and is averaging 38.8 in this streak, is carrying them and the supporting cast is again supportive.

The Lakers began the night with a dubious Jackson seeming to wince at the thought of their first two trips East, which included losses to moribund Cleveland, Atlanta and Miami.

“We can want the game, but if we’re not active and alive, we’re not going to get it,” Jackson said beforehand. “This team [Indiana] has got more in the tank than we do, by depth and also by the home court. So we’re going to have to be live tonight, we’re going to have to be aggressive. We haven’t shown that at all, on any trip coming to the East at all this year.”

Imagine how much more the Pacers had in their tank with 7:24 left in the third quarter and the Lakers clinging to a 55-54 lead, when O’Neal, who had just picked up his third and fourth fouls, had to come out.

In a surprise, with Bryant hitting a cold spell, missing seven shots in a row, the Lakers fought the Pacers off, finishing the third quarter up, 74-70.

With O’Neal back, they opened it up to 94-85 and withstood a late three-point barrage by Reggie Miller, with Devean George making a big three-pointer of his own to make it 97-91 with 33 seconds left.

Bryant bumped chests with George when they returned to the bench, which was a better place than they were at in November, when George went out with a sprained ankle and Bryant publicly questioned how much he was hurt.

“Devean knows I’m his No. 1 supporter,” Bryant said, “but I’m probably the toughest person on him. It felt good for me to see him hit that shot. He was very pleased with it too.”

The Lakers were less pleased when Brad Miller dropped a three-pointer to cut it to 97-94 with 31 seconds left, Bryant missed a long jumper, the Pacers got the ball back and Reggie Miller, the coldest-blooded three-point shooter the game has ever known, got a last chance to tie with a 30-footer -- “a few feet further out than I would have liked it to have been,” Miller said later, “but I’ve hit shots like that before.”

It hit the front rim and bounced away. For the moment, at least, the Lakers weren’t losers anymore.

“We don’t feel good about that yet,” Jackson said. “We’ve kind of put a moratorium on being celebratory of any victories until we’re over .500.

“If we can possibly win this next one versus New York on Thursday night, then we’ll feel like we’ve accomplished something, at least, in the last three or four weeks.”

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Fits and Starts

After a disastrous start, the Lakers have worked their way back to the .500 mark, one game away from the All-Star break. A periodic look at the record this season of three-time defending champions:

*--* Nov. 3 2-2 After defeating Portland, 98-95, in overtime, the Lakers were at .500 for the last time until Tuesday night Nov. 20 3-9 A 95-88 loss at San Antonio was the seventh in eight games Dec. 20 10-18 With their fifth loss in six games, a 107-104 decision at Philadelphia, the Lakers dropped to a season worst of eight games under .500 Jan. 15 18-20 A five-game winning streak, capped by a 90-82 victory at New Orleans, lifted the Lakers to their best record in 2 1/2 months Jan. 24 19-23 An 89-83 loss to New Jersey was the third in four games Tuesday 23-23 A fourth consecutive victory, 97-94 at Indiana, got the Lakers back to the break-even point

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