Win Gets 4-Star Rating

When the game got close, the Lakers came with the best four among them Friday night.

Where there were once two, there are four. Where there was Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Gary Payton also stand.

And so the Lakers, hoping to find a lockstep by spring, at the latest, moved nearer to something like synergy and beat the Detroit Pistons, 94-89, at Staples Center.

O’Neal, who had 21 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists despite a sore left knee, made two free throws with 20.2 seconds left to finish the game Pistons, and celebrated.

“That ... don’t work!” O’Neal howled down the floor. “That ... don’t work!”

O’Neal had 15 points and 11 rebounds in the second half, when the Lakers played well into the third quarter from a deficit. He made seven of 11 free throws after beginning the game shooting 45.8%.

Payton scored 21 points, including a late three-point basket, and Bryant and Malone each had 16.

No other Laker had more than seven points. No other Laker needed more than seven.

“It’s really early in the season,” Bryant said. “But this could be a preview of things to come as we acclimate ourselves to the system. It’s a preview. A snapshot. We’ll only get better at it.”

The Lakers are 7-2. They outrebounded the Pistons, 57-41, and have won two in a row, both at Staples Center, where they have won 19 regular-season games in a row over two seasons.

The Pistons, under new Coach Larry Brown, arrived at 5-3, having lost two in a row but on a day’s rest. With the Indiana Pacers and, perhaps now the New Orleans Hornets, they also arrived among the preferred franchises to replace the New Jersey Nets in the NBA Finals, a possibility given their ability to score and defend in the soft Eastern Conference.

They stayed with the Lakers for long periods, outscored them at times (Chauncey Billups led all scorers with 29), but generally were ill equipped to stay with them over 48 minutes, particularly as O’Neal began to find his range ... and his rage.

After some ratty stretches, the Lakers are stringing solid, crisp possessions together now. They still overpass at times. They committed 19 turnovers against the Pistons. But their intentions seem pure, to find open teammates for open shots. Together, the Big 4 made 27 of 52 field-goal attempts.

“It’s naturally going to gravitate that way,” Phil Jackson said. “They had open shots, they made open shots, they had opportunities and made the most of them.”

From a 71-69 lead early in the fourth quarter, the Lakers outscored the Pistons, 9-2, a run that ended with O’Neal’s alley-oop dunk on the break, off a pass from Derek Fisher, and an 80-71 lead. Kareem Rush, spotty in the early weeks, made two jump shots -- a 20-footer just right of straight on and a tough 10-foot fade-away -- to maintain the nine-point lead into the middle of the fourth quarter.

“We played OK,” O’Neal said. “We still made a lot of silly mistakes and let teams get into it. We have to get out and hunt people.

“Once we eliminate those silly mistakes, we’ll be a near-perfect team.”

Down three and with the basketball with less than a minute left, the Pistons got panicky, took three wild three-pointers and missed them all. So, their bus pulled away, the Pistons off to Phoenix, and on a three-game losing streak, Brown none too happy with it.

“But give them credit,” he said. “We got them to miss a couple, but they ran down and got some offensive rebounds. They made some stops when they had to. That’s the game.”

Elden Campbell scored 12 points in 15 minutes, the playing time as a result of foul trouble, that the result of being assigned to O’Neal.

The Lakers led by 24-12 eight minutes into the game and were tied at 40 14 minutes later, primarily because of seven second-quarter turnovers, a few trying to force entry passes into a double-teamed O’Neal.

The 28-16 run by the Pistons was fueled by six layups, some by guards barreling straight through the Laker defense and to the rim.

“I think we can get better,” Malone said. “We can do things better down the stretch. We have to be more aggressive. I’m still learning my teammates and stuff like that. As a whole, there’s no doubt what we’re trying to get accomplished. We’ll stay focused on the game and not get caught up in all the other stuff.”