On the Other Hand, They Just Might Be in Real Trouble

Yes, they’ve got trouble, right here in Lakerdom, with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Payback.

Having agreed beforehand that Thursday night’s game was, like, totally without meaning, the Lakers and Kings put on a heavyweight championship fight of a game. It was the kind of mano a mano the Lakers have always won against the Kings, the kind they think they can always win, especially if the Kings are the other mano.

But that’s not the way it went this time.

Instead, the Kings made all the clutch shots down the stretch, outscoring the Lakers, 18-9, in the last 4:02 and winning, 107-99.

If you’re a Laker fan, that’s not even the bad news, because other than the ending, your three-time defending champions actually proved they can still play championship-level ball.

The bad news is, the Lakers can play as well as they did and still not be good enough ... and the way things are now, they would have to play this team ... and two more, the Spurs and Mavericks, that are just about as good ... all on the road ... to get out of the West.

Let’s just say, if the Lakers do it, it will have been one memorable month of May.

“I don’t care what they think,” King Coach Rick Adelman said afterward. “That’s probably what they think [that the Lakers can beat the Kings]....

“It’s all about what we think. If we think we can beat anyone, that’s the most important thing.”

More scary news for the Lakers: It’s not Shaquille O’Neal who is holding them back any more.

Some insiders think O’Neal still doesn’t have all of his explosiveness back, but there’s no doubt he’s quicker and stronger, getting good separation on his pet moves that wasn’t there a few weeks ago, feeling so much better about things, he has gone back to talking to the press and insulting opponents.

Nor was this anything less than one of Kobe Bryant’s heroic nights, when he had nothing going (he started one for nine from the floor) and still wouldn’t let his team lose.

Unfortunately for Bryant and his team, the best he could do Thursday was stave off defeat long enough for them to come from 15 points behind in the second quarter, and take the lead in the fourth, before the Kings overwhelmed them for good.

Times have changed. O’Neal may have called Mike Bibby a “Cub Scout” (Bibby scored 19 points, hitting seven of 12 shots, so in the future, Shaq had better zing someone like Mateen Cleaves). But Phil Jackson has been minding his Ps and Qs where his favorite red-necked barbarians are concerned, suggesting an awareness, at least on his part, that the balance of power is tilting, if not already tilted.

The Lakers pooh-poohed this matchup, as if it was beneath them. The Kings pretended they weren’t psyched to the gills, but of course, they were.

The Kings aren’t afraid to say they look up to the Lakers ... and dream of the day they can drag them off their throne.

“I feel honored to be in a real rivalry, where you really dislike the team, as if it was college,” Chris Webber said before the game. “

“I respect the fact they can say we have a Pacific championship [last season] but they have a ring. Because that’s what it’s all about. That’s what I want. So I respect that, and I take that to heart and I think about that before we play them.

“And if we play them in the playoffs, I’ll think about that. I’ll let that be my incentive. I won’t try to block it with words and say, ‘So what?’ They said it because they can. They do have the rings. I don’t fear them. I know we can beat them, but they said that because it’s true. They have the rings.

“You don’t feel sorry for yourself. You kind of man up and say, ‘OK, that’s what you’ve got and I want it.’ Let’s go take it.”

In still more bad news for the Lakers, Webber has never played better and even shows signs of shedding his old Mr. Softee label, playing tougher at the end of games than he ever has.

The Lakers still have the greatest two-man tandem in ball and, perhaps, in history. But the Kings were already way deeper before adding Keon Clark and Jim Jackson. If you combined these two teams, only Shaq and Kobe might make the 12-man traveling squad.

The Lakers still have “it,” for the moment, but they’d better get ready because a lot of people seem to want “it” awfully badly.