All of Shaq’s Titles Mean a Lot to Him

HOUSTON -- It’s still Shaquille O’Neal in there, at 31, the playoffs close enough to touch, the Lakers not dead yet, Yao Ming propped up against him, supposed to be the next thing in the middle.

The Lakers aren’t convincing. They sometimes bear the expression of a team whose legs left it in the last parade, just pooled at its feet with the champagne, thinking it’s there, the last to know it’s not.

And then Kobe Bryant has his month, and then O’Neal takes the basketball in his right hand and beats back Yao with it, and the Lakers do the right thing down the stretch. They defeated the Houston Rockets, straining for the last playoff position in the Western Conference, 96-93, Wednesday night at Compaq Center, firmed up their own participation and again found comfort in O’Neal’s rising game.

O’Neal scored 39 points. He made 16 of 26 shots and was seven for eight from the free-throw line. Yao, who was hit hard in the jaw in the third quarter but gamely returned, scored six points.

Had O’Neal carried out Yao across his shoulders, it might not have been as thorough. O’Neal was strong and fast, despite only five rebounds, and Yao’s frequent defensive strategy was to backpedal away from O’Neal’s force, from what he knew was next. O’Neal scored 18 points in the fourth quarter, when he made seven of eight shots.

“I don’t really have to make statements,” O’Neal said. “Everybody knows what type of player I am. Even if you do have one good game, it’s not going to take me off my throne. I’ve been doing it for 10 years. I took it away from Hakeem [Olajuwon] a couple years ago, when he decided to leave, and I am not giving it back. Now it’s my turn. You’re going to have to outplay me at least a couple years before I give you the M.D.E. title. Most dominant ever.”

Two months had passed since the Shaq-Yao debut, the conflicts now drawing Roman numerals like Super Bowls, and O’Neal was lighter on his surgically repaired toe, crisper to the basket, and did not have his first three shots blocked by the rookie Yao, as he had Jan. 17. He was insulted when people mulled the changing of the guard at center, when they flocked to Houston to see if O’Neal could handle the towering 22-year-old. O’Neal started slow and then dominated that game on the inside, and the Lakers lost.

“He was motivated, no doubt about it,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “He really didn’t want to come out of the game in the first half, and in the second half I let him play more. When he is playing a lot of minutes, he is going to score. Shaq was really quick on the offensive end and he penetrated well, but I was very unhappy with his rebounding.”

O’Neal didn’t have a rebound until his 28th minute, the third quarter more than half done, a failing generally dismissed in the Laker victory and in O’Neal’s offensive ferocity.

“He really gets pumped up on little things like that,” said Kobe Bryant, who had 31 points and nine rebounds. “He wanted to silence the talk after the last game against Yao.

“I just think it took him a minute to figure him out. Once he figured Yao out, he’s pretty much going to do to Yao what he does to everybody else.”

This time, the Rockets missed the three-pointer at the end that would have forced overtime, the shot Steve Francis made in January. This time, the Lakers outscored the Rockets, 6-2, in the final 44 seconds. O’Neal scored on three consecutive possessions starting with 1:44 remaining, and Bryant made two free throws with 9.6 seconds left. Glen Rice’s 30-footer near the buzzer was wide right.

The Lakers are 41-30, in seventh place in the conference, with 11 games to play. It appears as though eighth place will be for the Rockets and the Phoenix Suns to decide, the Lakers four games ahead of both with 11 games to play.

They won two of three games on their trip, the loss in San Antonio.

Yao saw most of O’Neal on Wednesday night, the boom-boom and the drop step and the turn-around jumpers, and two or three times Yao crumpled beneath the basket.

“It was hard,” Yao said. “I thought that a lot of my movements on the court were limited. If he can attack me on offense, I think I should be able to find a way to defend him.”

O’Neal would laugh.

“I just played my game,” he said.

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The West

Western Conference standings, with division leaders 1-2. The top eight teams qualify (after tiebreakers) for playoffs:

*--* Team W-L GB 1. Dallas 54-17 -- 2. Sacramento 50-21 4 3. San Antonio 50-20 3 1/2 4. Minnesota 46-26 8 1/2 5. Portland 44-27 10 6. Utah 42-29 12 7. Lakers 41-30 13 8. Houston 37-34 17 8. Phoenix 37-34 17 10. Golden St 33-37 20 1/2

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