There’s a Surprise in This Balancing Act

For a change, Staples Center fans didn’t wait until Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal were introduced to unleash their loudest cheers.

For a change, the rest of the Lakers earned the applause.

When public address announcer Lawrence Tanter led off the starting lineup with Devean George at small forward, the pleasantly surprised crowd roared.

It was a shock to everyone after George’s sprained ankle sidelined him in Game 2 and put his availability for the rest of the series in doubt.

Marv Albert, sitting courtside to do the play-by-play for TNT, was tempted to draw comparisons between George’s surprise appearance to the most famous call of his career: Willis Reed limping out onto the court at Madison Square Garden for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals against the Lakers.

Then he came to his senses.

“Not quite,” Albert said. “[George] didn’t come down the tunnel.”

But in some ways he was twice as good. Reed hit his first two jump shots, and that was enough to inspire the Knicks to a 113-99 victory.

George made four of five shots in the first quarter, five of seven for the game. Like Reed, George set the stage. In this case, he made it clear that O’Neal and Bryant wouldn’t have to do it alone.

“Devean came in, he played with a lot of heart,” Bryant said. “His ankle’s bothering him, for him to come out and play with the intensity he played with is big.”

Said George: “You kind of focus in more when you’re hurt. I don’t know what it was, but I was just focused in on the game.”

The Lakers showed more balance than a tightrope walker in their 110-95 victory over the Spurs in Game 3.

George, 13 points. Robert Horry, 13 points. Derek Fisher, 14 points. O’Neal, 21 points, topped off by Bryant’s game-high 39 points.

This was the most democratic Laker victory of the season.

Everyone was a part of this, even the late Chick Hearn. A scoreboard screen of his wife, Marge, and great-granddaughter, Kayla, followed by a shot of his retired jersey drew another loud ovation during a timeout.

Trainer Gary Vitti should get a game ball for his 24-hour on-call service tending to George’s ankle for the last four days.

And make no mistake, Phil Jackson had his impact on this.

O’Neal and Bryant had dominated the Laker offense, doing nothing to create shots for the other in San Antonio. On Thursday, Jackson said that would have to change, and before Friday’s game he indicated that he had made his point and the stars were in a harmonic convergence.

“Both [Shaq] and Kobe are receptive as players,” Jackson said. “We think the execution of it is difficult, but the intent is there with both players.”

Jackson persuaded O’Neal to go away from his power game and simply become another part of the triangle in the first quarter. O’Neal came up to the high post, set screens and passed; he had four of his eight assists in the first quarter.

“When [the change] is coming from Phil, no [problem],” O’Neal said. “Coming from everybody else, then, yeah, I have a problem. Phil told me to keep everybody involved first and see if they hit the shots. If they don’t hit the shots, then go for what I know. That’s what I did. That’s the good thing about having a guy like Phil.”

In Game 3, the Lakers got back to sharing, like an obedient kindergarten class. And if Jackson wanted another lesson, that his way is the right way, he got it from O’Neal. Frustrated that Tim Duncan blocked a shot, O’Neal got the ball back and tried to overwhelm David Robinson. He was called for a foul, his second personal.

A little more than 2 1/2 minutes later, he picked up his third.

And that’s when the Lakers’ season was in the hands of ... the other guys.

When O’Neal went to the bench, the Lakers’ lead was seven points with 5:12 left in the first half. It was clear he wouldn’t be coming back until the third quarter. The Lakers somehow needed to survive, to squeeze a few minutes out of their unproductive role players and get to the locker room with the lead.

They didn’t survive, they thrived.

Mark Madsen pulled down two offensive rebounds on one possession, leading to a trip to the free-throw line and a point. Madsen got it done at the other end of the court as well. He ripped the ball out of Malik Rose’s hands when Rose tried to drive. And he pulled down two defensive rebounds.

Horry scored as many points in 3 minutes 20 seconds as he did in the first two games combined, five, on a jump shot and three free throws. They all played well on defense, held the Spurs to one field goal, and outscored them, 12-4, to go into halftime leading, 50-36.

It was a team effort once again in the third quarter. While Duncan scored 15 of the Spurs’ 31 points, the Lakers matched them without a single player reaching double figures.

Was it good to be home? You betcha. In San Antonio a Manu Ginobili jump shot bounced twice off the top of the backboard and dropped through the hoop. At Staples Center, a Kobe Bryant reverse layup rolled off the bottom of the backboard and right back into Bryant’s hands. So he dropped in a three-pointer.

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