O’Neal Proves Only One Can Dominate

The way Shaquille O’Neal played against the Houston Rockets on Thursday night wouldn’t remind anyone of Wilt Chamberlain.

It was more like Dikembe Mutombo. For once, that’s meant as a compliment to O’Neal.

Mutombo made his mark on the league with shut-down defense that gave him a lock on the defensive player of the year award. It was on defense O’Neal made his mark in the Lakers’ 93-85 victory over the Rockets that enabled the Lakers to move into a tie for first place in the Western Conference.

O’Neal missed more shots than he made, scoring only 18 points. He took eight rebounds. He didn’t have an assist.

But he limited Yao Ming to only six points on three-for-15 shooting.

“In the first half, he gave me a lot of pressure,” Yao said. “Then, I think, because he saw I wasn’t shooting well, he backed off me.”

O’Neal said afterward: “Yao’s a great guy, he’s a great center. But there’s only one dominant center.”

O’Neal dominated on defense this night, which was where the Lakers needed him most. Laker Coach Phil Jackson says Yao is the best offensive center O’Neal has faced since another Houston Rocket, Hakeem Olajuwon, in the mid-1990s. Olajuwon and the Rockets swept O’Neal’s Orlando Magic in the 1995 NBA Finals. Since then, O’Neal has grown accustomed to having his way with the center matchups and having the freedom to patrol the entire paint on defense.

“This is an entirely different thing for him,” Jackson said. “Now he’s got to find a way to work on someone where he’s got to focus all game long on a player stepping in front of him, rather than playing team defense and controlling the lane.”

So O’Neal reacted to the challenge from the beginning, moving his feet and positioning his arms in classic defensive form. He had a hand in Yao’s face on almost every shot he attempted.

O’Neal doesn’t like it when people talk about Yao in the same terms as him, but the numbers Yao puts up (i.e., an average of 31 points in their previous two meetings) keep forcing the discussion.

O’Neal gives credit to Yao for making the plays a 7-foot-5 man should make, which is more than he can say about Shawn Bradley. But he’s always quick to point out that the Rockets always send help to Yao, while he generally guards the Rockets center one-on-one.

In this highlight-driven society, that explanation won’t erase the images of Yao hitting jumpers and hook shots over O’Neal.

And in this media-saturated age, O’Neal manages to hear every word that accompanies them.

“I know he watched the interview on TNT,” Karl Malone said. “The guys in the studio roasted him a little bit.”

I wouldn’t say they roasted Shaq. Maybe sauteed.

“Shaq has got to play defense early on Yao Ming,” Magic Johnson said. “He is letting Yao Ming get too deep and when you let Yao Ming get deep ... I don’t care ... there is no one in basketball or no double-team in basketball that can stop Yao Ming.”

Charles Barkley added: “It’s very simple. Yao Ming has been bringing it to Shaq. It’s an exciting matchup. It’s like the old Lakers vs. Celtics, but Yao Ming has been plain roasting him lately.”

If it’s strange for O’Neal to hear those words, he can at least take comfort in the novel experience of having a top-notch power forward alongside him in a Laker uniform.

It was Malone’s first game against the Rockets, and he made his presence felt. He banged people around and pulled in 14 rebounds. Malone was so intense that he even snarled at O’Neal for going after a ball that Malone grabbed first. Malone made so many good passes it seemed like a software error when the final box score said he had only six assists.

As strange as it’s been to see an opposing center get the better of O’Neal, it’s been just as rare to see another shooting guard outduel Kobe Bryant this season.

On Feb. 11, Bryant looked out of sorts in his first game back from a finger injury, and Cuttino Mobley outscored him, 21-14, with most of Bryant’s points coming after the outcome had been decided in the fourth quarter.

Thursday night, Mobley slipped by Bryant for backdoor screens, took him off the dribble for layups and buried jumpers, hitting Bryant for 15 points in the first quarter, while Bryant misfired on three of his four shots.

Bryant was only going to take that for so long. In the second quarter, he went back at Mobley, getting nine points and holding Mobley to only one bucket on five shots. On the most dramatic play, Bryant lost Mobley on a screen by O’Neal, and used a crossover dribble to shake Clarence Weatherspoon and soared by Yao for a layup.

Bryant wound up even with Mobley with 26.

The best incentive for the Lakers to grab the No. 1 playoff seed is that it would take them far away from the Houston Rockets, who are almost certain to finish with the No. 7 seed or above.

It’s hard to mount sustained scoring runs on the Rockets. They play defense like the New York Knicks did in the ‘90s.

Actually, with Mark Jackson and Charles Oakley on the roster and Jeff Van Gundy and Patrick Ewing coaching on the bench, they are the New York Knicks in the ‘90s.

For one night, O’Neal was Mutombo in the ‘90s. The only thing missing was the finger wag.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande go to latimes.com/Adande.