O’Neal’s Milestone Means a Lot of Work

Shaquille O’Neal went from zero to 20,000 in 727 games, over 10-plus seasons, 27 points a game, night after night.

He reached the milestone with a seven-foot turnaround jumper late in the second quarter Thursday night against the Sacramento Kings at Arco Arena, as good a place as any, he had supposed. The game did not pause in the slightest, as the Lakers tried to overcome a big early lead by the Kings.

At halftime, the public address announcer congratulated O’Neal. He was booed.

O’Neal, at 31, became the fifth-youngest to reach 20,000, behind Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Twenty-seven others were there already, among them Hakeem Olajuwon, who beat him in the 1995 NBA Finals, Jerry West, who brought him to Los Angeles, Patrick Ewing, whose jersey he wore as a child, and Mitch Richmond, a teammate on his third championship team.

“It ain’t really important important,” O’Neal said. “It means I’ve been here a while, I put in work.”

He said he’d enjoy the milestone, “fatherly-wise,” meaning, “I can tell the kids I got 20,000.”

O’Neal has three years remaining on his current contract and Laker owner Jerry Buss has said he’d extend O’Neal another three, meaning the more exclusive 30,000 club, where only four players have gone, could come in a Laker uniform.

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The Lakers didn’t get much from the players around O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson rattling off the names of Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Robert Horry and Devean George. Mark Madsen played reasonably well in a difficult defensive test against Chris Webber, but had five turnovers in his first 19 minutes. Fox and Horry each missed five of six shots, Fisher missed seven of 11, and George, in 16 minutes, had two points and no rebounds. ... The Kings’ 41 fourth-quarter points were a season high. The Lakers gave up 42 fourth-quarter points to the New York Knicks in a win.

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TONIGHT

vs. Boston, 7:30, FSN

Site -- Staples Center

Radio -- KLAC (570), KWKW (1330), KIRN (670)

Records -- Lakers 38-29, Celtics 38-30.

Record vs. Celtics -- 0-1.

Update -- Paul Pierce averages 25.7 points, Antoine Walker 20.9 points. The Celtics have lost two in a row, including by 30 Wednesday night in Indiana, and four of six games. Guard Tony Delk has a sprained ankle and is questionable. The Celtics are trying to sweep the Lakers in consecutive seasons for the first time since the mid-’70s.