Laker Loss Is a Cruel Twist

If it wasn’t Shaquille O’Neal’s left knee, which would not even carry him to the bench on Sunday night, then it was Kobe Bryant’s right knee, which barely got him across the locker room afterward.

In the order of things that might foil their four-peat first, O’Neal’s knee would not let him play, Bryant’s would not let him walk away, and the Lakers lost, 117-110, to the New York Knicks at Staples Center.

Playing two months to the day from the end of the regular season and facing all of the ramifications of that approaching deadline, the potential complications to the Lakers’ intended championship are coming faster than the solutions and, at 26-25, they are again moving on .500, now from the other direction.

The Lakers have lost two in a row and four of six at home, most recently because, without O’Neal, Bryant’s 40 points weren’t enough and Allan Houston’s career-high 53 were way, way too much. Houston made 18 of 29 shots, four of five from three-point range, for the most points scored in the NBA this season, two more than Bryant scored four days before in Denver.

On a knee tuned twice by trainer Gary Vitti during the game -- once in the first half on the bench and again at halftime -- Bryant reached 35 or more points for the ninth consecutive game and at least 40 for the fifth in a row. While the eight previous games spoke to Bryant’s freedom from knee aggravation, Sunday’s was a testament to his willingness to play through it.

“I’m hurt,” he said in mid-gimp. “And I’m getting old.”

Bryant called his injury “jumper’s knee,” the ailment that has plagued Toronto’s Vince Carter in the past couple of seasons.

“I exploded on a pull-up jump shot and sprained it and was pretty much dragging it for the rest of the game,” he said. “I had tendinitis in both knees, so you have to constantly stay on top of it. The good thing about it is that I recovered pretty well and I respond pretty quickly.... A couple days of rest and I will feel just fine.”

In the meantime, if the war-conscious are going to buy up all of the duct tape, what will Phil Jackson use to hold the Lakers together? They are a game out of the final playoff position in the Western Conference with 31 games remaining and the Houston Rockets, the team clinging to the eighth spot, coming in Tuesday.

The Knicks made more than half of their field-goal attempts, nine of 16 threes, and Houston generally did whatever it was he chose. When he wasn’t shooting jump shots, the Knicks spent a lot of the night at the front of the rim or driving toward it, and so the Lakers allowed 117 points to a team that had averaged 94.5 in its first 50 games.

Houston scored 20 points in the third quarter and 10 in the fourth, when the Lakers occasionally meandered to within a couple of possessions of the Knicks, a team that will spend this spring thinking more about the odds of their getting LeBron James than a playoff berth. Late, Charlie Ward made a big three and so did Latrell Sprewell, which pretty much killed an amazing quarter by Brian Shaw, who came off the bench to score 16 points in 12 minutes, his only playing time. Derek Fisher had 21 points and eight assists.

But Bryant spent too much time tugging on the sleeve that supported his right knee, and there were no easy shots or stops without O’Neal, and so the Lakers arrived in their final two months still without momentum, and still clinging to any hope that will get them there.

“He limped his way through it,” Jackson said of Bryant, “managed to make some outrageous shots, some outstanding shots, but he just didn’t have the speed or the quickness that he does have normally.

“He usually responds well to treatment [and] we’re not too worried about it. We’re a team that’s obviously very finely tuned. Obviously we have to have our personnel play well. We don’t have a lot of parts that are adjustable without.”

They’ll wait for O’Neal, then, and do what they can with Samaki Walker at center, and Mark Madsen backing him up, for now. Jackson did seem to think O’Neal would be available Tuesday, that he would be better for the rest and the challenge of Yao Ming, though he stopped short of a guarantee, and the rest of the Lakers seemed to be readying themselves for whatever decision O’Neal makes.

“We have to work more as a team and it becomes a bit more difficult for us to do what we are trying to do, in winning four championships,” Fisher said. “It’s not going to be a situation where Kobe can carry us or Shaq can carry us by themselves. We are going to need everybody.”

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*--* The West Top eight teams qualify for playoffs in Western Conference. Division leaders are seeded No. 1 and No. 2: W-L GB 1. Dallas 39-12 -- 2. Sacramento 36-18 4 1/2 3. San Antonio 36-16 3 1/2 4. Portland 33-18 6 5. Minnesota 33-20 7 6. Utah 31-21 8 1/2 7. Phoenix 30-23 10 8. Houston 27-24 12 9. Lakers 26-25 1 10. Golden St 24-28 3 1/2

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UP NEXT FOR LAKERS

HOUSTON AT STAPLES CENTER

Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., FSN, TNT

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