They’re Going Back to Middle Ground

OK folks, show’s over.

Back to life, back to reality.

Back to Shaq.

There’s a choice for everyone in Lakerland. They can go for the entertainment, or they can go for another championship.

Kobe Bryant’s scoring romp over every defender who came his way -- and through the record books -- had Staples Center stomping and the NBA buzzing for the past couple of weeks. But it wasn’t realistic to think it would be the formula for running through the playoffs.

His run of consecutive games with at least 40 points ended at nine.

So Tuesday night’s 109-98 Laker victory over the Clippers was light on theatrics, light on drama, heavy on the heavy guy in the middle.

It featured a whole lot of Shaquille O’Neal, and carried playoff implications.

It’s time to put aside Kobe’s quest for Chamberlain.

“We need to win as many games as we can,” said Jim Cleamons, who filled in as head coach while Phil Jackson recovered from a kidney stone procedure.

They need to do that any way they can, and the most basic way is by running the offense through Shaquille O’Neal.

“Of course, any team we play, they’re going to be undermanned at the center,” O’Neal said.

Especially the Clippers, without the injured Michael Olowokandi.

So the Lakers went inside to O’Neal. He scored 13 points in the first quarter, and 33 in the game.

That attitude carried through right until the end. In the last minute, with Bryant needing three points to at least continue his streak of 13 consecutive games of 35 or more points, Bryant stood near the three-point line. He was guarded by two Clippers. The crowd had been urging him to shoot every time the Lakers crossed halfcourt in the final minutes.

But Bryant did the smart thing, the Basketball 101 move, and passed to O’Neal underneath the basket.

With the Big Dog fed to the point of satisfaction, his ego seemed assuaged after a round of criticism from these and other quarters for sitting out two games last week. The problematic toe and recently troublesome knee that forced him to the sidelines seemed to be progressing.

“Feeling a little bit better, the fellas were finding me,” O’Neal said. “[The Clippers] were spending so much time double and tripling Kobe it gave me an opportunity to go one-on-one.”

He even felt good enough to chide Jackson: “I think he should have got the surgery before at the beginning of the year instead of waiting,” O’Neal said.

Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry said when teams go through their scouting report before they face the Lakers, the first thing they talk about is O’Neal.

“He’s still the guy,” Gentry said before the game.

In the first half O’Neal made eight of 11 shots, while the rest of the Lakers made only nine of 35. (The best thing about a flurry of points from O’Neal: they play 50 Cent’s jam “In Da Club” over the loudspeakers at Staples Center every time Shaq scores.)

For the game, O’Neal made 13 of 21 shots from his usual close range. He also made seven of nine free throws.

“The bottom line is, we just don’t have an answer for Shaq,” Gentry said afterward. “We’re not in the minority there.”

On Tex Winter’s 81st birthday, the Lakers tried to appease him by at least running some semblance of the triangle offense he created. That resulted in five players scoring in the first quarter and assists on eight of the team’s 10 baskets.

“I told them I recognized our offense ... once in a while,” Winter said.

The Clippers demonstrated a familiar trait as well: the went into fold mode in the fourth quarter. The half-court offense came to a standstill. They missed fastbreak layups. They gave up offensive rebounds and second-chance points. The turnovers.

“We were right there and we turned the ball over,” Gentry said. “That’s the way our season has gone.”

You know what else went according to form? Elton Brand, steady as ever, going for 21 points and eight rebounds.

He made four of five shots in the first quarter and it barely seemed noticeable. That’s what Brand does. He’s the bass player, strumming the same four notes while the guitar player goes off on a free-wheeling solo.

Brand kept the Clippers in the game while O’Neal threatened to make the game his personal showcase, and thanks in large part to Brand’s 16 points and six rebounds in the first half, the Clippers held the halftime lead.

(Quick aside: Rick Fox is taking this Southern California lifestyle he espouses in the car commercials a little too far. Last week in Utah he used the words “stoked” and “totally” in the span of a minute. On Tuesday he scraped his hand and knee in a skateboard accident with his kids.)

Bryant can still fill the highlight quotient. He drove baseline and elevated for a two-handed slam in the first half, his head almost at rim level. He somehow hung in the air like a hot-air balloon and tipped back a missed jumper in the third quarter.

Then he rocked the house with an around-the-world dunk on a breakaway in the fourth quarter. And he still finished with 32 points.

The Lakers will need him to go for 40 points again at some point, and he can be more confident than ever knowing that he’s ready.

But the method to winning playoff games is going inside early and often. The Lakers seemed to remember that Tuesday.

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