A Tale of the Superstar Absences

Shaq’s team? Kobe’s team?

Maybe the answer is neither of the above.

After the Lakers’ two biggest dogs battled for control of the yard before the season started, the Lakers’ two best games so far have come without them.

Allow us to present Sunday’s well-balanced, coach-satisfying, 121-89 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies, played while O’Neal was in the locker room receiving treatment on a strained right calf. It was the perfect companion to the opening-night victory over Dallas, which Bryant sat out because of a sore right knee.

The Lakers set season highs for points, field-goal percentage (59%), free-throw percentage (90%) and winning margin. They had 32 assists, matching the season high they set against the Mavericks. They drew about a half-dozen charges on defense and forced 24 turnovers.

“That’s what we want to see them play like,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “Ninety percent of that game was enjoyable for us as a coaching staff.”

You’d be foolish to think that the best route to victory doesn’t go through No. 34 in the low post, or that the Lakers won’t need Bryant’s heroics somewhere down the road (make that on the road) in the playoffs.

As Karl Malone said, “I don’t care about the score. We want [O’Neal] back, as quick as he can get back.”

That could come as soon as Wednesday against the Washington Wizards.

The Lakers also had to play the fourth quarter of Friday’s game against Chicago without O’Neal. The one thing that game, Sunday’s game and the Dallas game had in common is that they were at Staples Center. The Lakers haven’t demonstrated an ability to overcome adversity on the road. In their one opportunity, when foul trouble limited O’Neal to 31 minutes in Detroit last week, the Lakers couldn’t beat the Pistons.

But this was a little test, to see how they would perform without O’Neal from start-to-finish. As Jackson said beforehand, “We’ll know a little bit more about this team.”

He found out that Bryant can recognize that O’Neal’s absence isn’t a license to shoot at will, that Horace Grant can start at center without his body breaking into pieces, that Slava Medvedenko can do more than just shoot, and that the Lakers can use the triangle as it’s intended -- to create good individual scoring opportunities within the team offense.

It was interesting that Memphis was in town. It was against the Grizzlies two weeks ago that Bryant went off on his own in the fourth quarter, firing up eight shots and alienating his teammates. That was with O’Neal on the court.

Jackson showed tape of that game recently to demonstrate players taking their own initiative outside the offense.

On Sunday Bryant took 16 shots, only a couple of them forced, scored 28 points and generated 12 of the Lakers’ 30 trips to the free-throw line (he made 11). He also forced four steals.

As soon as O’Neal went down in the third quarter Friday, it was time to start teasing Grant about getting his body ready for extended playing time Sunday.

Then Grant, 38, started resting.

“I went home and cut my phone off, I didn’t talk to anyone, I ate spaghetti and meatballs when I woke up,” Grant said. “I was ready [to play] about 40 minutes.”

Fortunately for him, the Lakers rolled to such a large lead that he only had to play 27. But he was active during that stretch. Quietly, he has been playing better all-court defense than O’Neal, and Grant recently began making some of the open jump shots that come his way.

Bryon Russell has also played well at both ends of the court the last couple of games. Maybe the sight of Rick Fox getting closer to a place on the active roster has prompted Russell to fight for his spot. Suday he blocked two shots, grabbed three rebounds and scored a season-high 14 points.

Medvedenko, fresh off the injured list, grabbed 11 rebounds in addition to making seven of eight shots.

Malone had a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds, (and also got to rest his injured hamstring for the entire fourth quarter).

“That’s great teammwork,” Memphis Coach Hubie Brown said . “The rest of the guys rose to the occasion.”

“Just go back a year ago: when Shaq misses the games [the Lakers] are sub-.500.”

“Don’t forget that now. See that’s easy to forget, see, cause you’re in La La Land, you’ve got all this success and all this [b.s.], OK? But now, without him, you’ve got two other stars to step up, and Bryant has a major supporting cast.”

“You had really excellent contributions from the people who came here for the right reasons.”

(Classic postgame performance by Hubie. He went more than three minutes without taking a question. What a great bonus to watch this game than hear Hubie break it down afterward as if he had a head-set on again and was doing analysis for TNT again.)

The interesting thing to emerge from the Laker locker room was that Bryant had promised a Laker victory to Jackson. You knew his competitive engine was revving, eager to show he could do it without O’Neal.

As well as Bryant played last year, when he took over the heavy work while O’Neal was recovering from toe surgery, the Lakers still went 5-10 without O’Neal. They are 18-24 without him since Bryant became a starter in 1999.

Neither player would be great without a great ego. And sometimes a little competition within the squad can be healthy. Don’t think for a minute that the other players, with all of their individal accolades and championship rings, didn’t want to prove that they weren’t along for the ride, either.

But for now it’s Shaq 1, Kobe 1. So who’s the winner?

The Lakers.

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