Lakers Are Finally Defending Crown

Over Kobe Bryant’s shoulder, on a television set hanging from the ceiling, the Sacramento Kings were winning again Wednesday night, and winning by a lot.

A half-hour before, the Lakers had defeated the New Orleans Hornets, 90-82, at New Orleans Arena.

Bryant had scored 36 points and the Hornets hadn’t made a field goal in the final eight-plus minutes, and so Bryant had pumped his fist at the Lakers’ fifth consecutive victory, the one that brought them to within two games of .500 (18-20) for the first time since they were 2-4.

They had played hard in the critical moments, in the places that had kept them from winning any more than four of their first 18 road games, places that had allowed the Kings so much room in the Pacific Division. A two-game trip they all agreed was important began with a reasonably clean victory, though Shaquille O’Neal played unevenly for the first three quarters.

Robert Horry, gimpy for weeks after playing too many early-season minutes, played a game he usually reserves for spring. He had 10 points, four steals and seven rebounds in 30 minutes. Of the two shots he blocked, the latter kept P.J. Brown from the dunk with less than two minutes left that would have brought the Hornets to within three points.

Horry took his last rebound with 10 seconds left, with the aisles filled with teal-colored fans, with the Hornets sure they had lost. He stood 40 feet from the basket, the ball under his arm, and the clock ran down, and then Bryant smiled broadly and clapped and touched teammates who ran to him.

Hounded by the Lakers at times and simply missing at others, the Hornets scored three points in the last 6:59 and did not make a field goal after Jamal Mashburn’s three-pointer with 8:20 left.

“We hope it was some of our defense,” Coach Phil Jackson said, “and not all of their shooting.”

Asked if any of it validated their rising assumptions of themselves, Bryant curled his lip and said, “I mean, maybe to you guys. For us, we know we’re playing with a better rhythm. Even though our wins didn’t come against playoff teams, per se, we knew our rhythm was there.”

The Lakers have won eight of 10 games, have drawn ever closer to the top eight in the Western Conference, to the eventual playoff qualifiers. They might never free themselves completely from the two months that forever will skew the standings and statistics, but they can reclaim the way they played for three years.

That’s their plan, anyway. That’s why, when his attention was called to the television, which showed the Kings making the Dallas Mavericks look every bit like the, well, the New Jersey Nets, Bryant shrugged.

“We don’t worry about those guys,” he said. “We really don’t. If we see them in the playoffs, we see them in the playoffs. It’s entertaining, though.”

There are 44 games left for that. They’ll play Houston on Friday for the right to call the trip a success, for the comfort of knowing they can, if they desire, summon their legs and the minds into a season that has brightened considerably recently.

“I think it’s just re-establishing ourselves a little bit as a basketball team,” Jackson said. “To be able to pull things together as a team. There are some second-effort things that are helping us do that.”

Two weeks ago, O’Neal had asked that they arrive at .500 by the All-Star game, held Feb. 9. They could be there Monday, nearly three weeks early.

They’ve come to the verge of it at home and against weakling opponents, until Wednesday, when point guard Baron Davis returned after sitting out six games because of a sore back and played 42 minutes.

Davis makes the Hornets formidable, even while in pain, and now they’ve lost five consecutive games.

“I played him too many minutes, but we were really trying to win the game,” Hornet Coach Paul Silas said.

Bryant was the most creative player on the floor. And the toughest. And the most athletic. Again.

Thirty-two of his points came in the first three quarters. After playing the first 39 minutes, however, Bryant sat four chairs from Jackson for two minutes of the fourth quarter, idle time earned when he forced shots on four consecutive possessions.

But O’Neal scored 10 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter, when he made four shots, one more than all of the Hornets combined.