Veterans Show the Way

The Lakers’ basketball week started with the Utah Jazz and ended with the Seattle SuperSonics, two franchises that until last year were intrinsically linked to Karl Malone and Gary Payton.

They wear Laker uniforms now, and this week they showed why they have become so important to their new teams so quickly. Whether it was Payton pushing the ball upcourt as the Lakers ran off to an 18-3 start, Malone collecting rebounds and floor burns in the Lakers’ current 11-game winning streak, or the two of them combining to (finally) keep opponents from pick-and-rolling them to death, the Lakers have been at their best when the newcomers are putting their distinctive imprints on the game.

“It’s the aggressiveness of Gary Payton and what he does for us, combined with what Karl brings to the table,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “I think that’s the key, really, that sets it off. I wouldn’t want to lay it all on Karl’s lap, or Gary’s lap at all. I think it has to do with the combination of characters.”

These Lakers have more characters than an episode of “Chappelle’s Show.” Of course, when nothing else goes right, the Lakers always have Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

But Friday’s pregame episode featured Payton and Malone, as cantankerous as those geezers in the balcony on the Muppets. They were arguing over who would get the Western Conference’s final playoff spot, the Jazz or Portland Trail Blazers.

Payton’s has been the constant, unavoidable voice in the locker room. When Jackson was asked what he learned about these two future Hall of Famers by coaching them, he replied: “Gary talks louder and more often than I thought he talked. But I knew he talked a lot.”

Sometimes Jackson even listens. Payton and Malone had their input on how to shore up the team’s perennial defensive weakness against the pick-and-roll. These days you’re much more likely to see Malone jump out on the ballhandler, then retreat and hand the duties back to Payton.

“Gary’s been the one asking about it,” Jackson said. “Gary’s really been asking about getting help and talking and making adjustments as we go through. Karl’s response is, let’s just be aggressive and go after the ball. That’s been our focus.”

Malone said he came up with his strategy while watching the Lakers get beat over and over while he was injured.

It’s an approach that comes from years of playing in the league -- and against each other.

With the additions of Payton and Malone, the Lakers have turned into a modern history museum of the Western Conference.

It’s what Pat Riley used to call the Principle of Perfect Painful Progression. You need to take losses and your lumps in the postseason before advancing. Glory through suffering. In the old Eastern Conference, the Boston Celtics taught the Detroit Pistons, who taught the Chicago Bulls, who taught the New York Knicks. If you look at the West in the late ‘90s, Payton’s SuperSonics beat out Malone’s Jazz for a trip to the 1996 NBA Finals, while the Utah Jazz left the Lakers by the wayside on the way to the Finals in 1997 and ’98.

“When we beat them in ‘96, it was a learning process we went through from them beating us in the years before,” Payton said. “We knew that we had to be tough and we buckled down and were gutsy and we beat them in Game 7.”

In 1998, the Lakers knocked off the Sonics, winning the last four games of the series, and everyone prepared to anoint the league’s next dynasty.

Then the Jazz swept them in the conference finals. “Any time that it was crucial and we needed something, we’d go with the small lineup, put Big Fella in the pick and roll and dare them to stop it,” Malone said.

Since then it’s been the San Antonio Spurs and the Lakers, usually at each other’s expense.

Malone has more respect for the Lakers, because they have championship rings and he doesn’t. And O’Neal has learned how to like Malone.

“I really hated Karl until I hung out with him and his family,” O’Neal said.

Malone can tease, push and prod O’Neal without repercussions. In the preseason he asked to see who would last all 82 games. (They both lost, but Malone lasted longer before going down). He still calls out O’Neal to keep pace with the 40-year-old man.

Payton makes life easier on Bryant. He saves Bryant the wear and tear of bringing the ball up the court. He can go in the post and kick the ball back out to Bryant. He can find him for easy baskets, as Payton did when he caught the SuperSonics napping and threw a long pass from the backcourt to Bryant for a wide-open three.

Sometimes Payton even relieves Bryant from taking all the big shots, such as the three-pointer Payton made with four minutes left in the game that gave the Lakers a nine-point lead -- and had Payton grinning at Bryant as they ran back on defense.

The newcomers are much more comfortable in the offense now. At the start of the season, Payton forced the tempo relentlessly, in part to escape from his duties of running the triangle offense. When Malone got the ball in the halfcourt, he would hesitate, unsure whether to pass or shoot. Now Payton can be seen directing his teammates. Malone sometimes replaces O’Neal in the post, becoming the focal point of the offense.

As Jackson announced this week, “They’re there.”

Now it’s just a matter of them getting to the only place they haven’t visited in their careers: a championship podium.

“We know what they’ve done,” O’Neal said. “They’ve just been great unlucky players. And Kobe and I have been great, lucky players. We’re all on the same page now, because we lost it last year and we’re trying to get it back, those guys are trying to get it. I always look at Karl and Gary and tell them, the least I’m going to do is get you one this year. We’re playing for them this year.”

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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.