Not Going Quietly

And so, we join the Lakers on their annual spring frolic to glory ...

Oh, never mind.

At least, they’re in a better place than they were a week ago. They had to be, or they’d have been on their way to vacation and/or the next phases in their careers.

Here’s how close they came:

If Kobe Bryant hits the rim instead of Shaquille O’Neal at the end of Game 1, they might be down, 1-0. If O’Neal gets his fifth foul after Phil Jackson gambles and lets him stay on the floor in the third quarter of Game 2, they might be down, 2-0.

Significantly, Jackson kept O’Neal in for defense, not offense, one more sign things have changed. O’Neal was on his way to his playoff-low seven points, but without him, Jackson was afraid Karl Malone or Slava Medvedenko might get stepped on by Yao Ming, who was going where he wanted like a T-Rex in “Jurassic Park.”

Nevertheless, it’s the Lakers who lead, 2-0. It might be late in the Laker dynasty, but however precocious the Rockets’ 7-5 center may be, it’s still early in the Ming.

The Rockets have six new players, three new starters and a new coach and just made the playoffs for the first time in five years. They’re the team that went 15-15 after the All-Star break and 3-6 in April.

With all the Lakers’ turmoil, they were 25-7 after the break and 5-3 in April.

Rocket Coach Jeff Van Gundy specializes in suffering and enduring, so this isn’t going down well, as you might infer from the post-Game 2 news conference:

Reporter: “Coach, Yao had a big first half ... “

Van Gundy: “Not really. You know, that’s not a big first half, five for 12 [shooting] and what’d he have, two rebounds?”

Reporter: “My question was, Shaq was in foul trouble and Yao was playing decently ... “

Van Gundy: “You scaled it back. You went from ‘good’ to ‘decent.’ If I talk to you for another half minute, you’ll be [saying], ‘He was terrible.’ ”

Van Gundy is an old rival from Jackson’s days in Chicago, where Phil had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. With the New York Knicks, Van Gundy had Patrick Ewing from the ages of 33 to 37.

Now Jackson has O’Neal and Bryant. Van Gundy has Yao, age 23.

Jackson has many virtues, not the least of which is exquisite taste in situations. Van Gundy is a difference-maker in his own right, but he has never saddled the favorite in the Derby, or one of the top five picks, for that matter.

This is a problem for a coach mentored by the relentless Pat Riley, who divided life into “winning and misery.” That was hard enough in Riley’s Laker days when they won four titles and appeared in seven NBA Finals in his first eight seasons.

Riley’s Knicks won no titles and were in New York, to boot, so you can imagine how happy everyone was there.

Four seasons after Riley bailed on the aging Knicks, Van Gundy booted what was left into the Finals, one of the more improbable coaching jobs in NBA history.

Even more remarkably, Van Gundy got out of Dodge gracefully and on his own terms two seasons later, leaving a 10-9 team to Don Chaney, who went 20-43 the rest of the way, which was when the game’s Mecca began to notice its team wasn’t really that great.

In Houston, Van Gundy coaches the same way: tough defense, deliberate pace, taking each possession as if it was the last, water torture the Lakers survived in Games 1 and 2.

Van Gundy now has a better team than the Knicks with a brighter future. Unfortunately for him, it’s in the Western Conference, so for the moment, he’s still what he was, the little guy trying to get everyone to buy into the belief they can beat the odds.

Laying off the grief in the meantime, he fences with the morons, er, press:

Reporter: “Kobe had a big night tonight, Shaq had a big game the last game. Did you guys do something different that made that happen that way?”

Van Gundy: “Do you mean, do we want to force one to have a big night the one night and then force the other guy to have a big night the next night?”

Reporter: “No, did you key more on Shaq this game than the previous game? How were you able to contain Shaq?”

Van Gundy: “He got fouls. If the other guy’s shooting the ball -- there’s only one ball. So many of us, when we’re analyzing a game ... we don’t realize, there’s only one ball so when one guy’s shooting it, the other guy can’t be. That’s why it’s a team game.

“I just want to hop on the bandwagon -- I think Kobe’s shooting far too much. You know, just so everybody knows, I think it is the root evil of all problems and he should really think more team, think pass.

“I said this before the game and it’s really true: What’s written and what I see are like night and day. What I see is an unbelievable player who has the ability to create a shot any time he wants, and does get good shots, and passes, and competes every night. So I don’t know what everybody else is looking at, but that guy, he was great tonight and he’s been great all year.”

Of course, Van Gundy was only in town for four days and might have missed a subplot or two.

Two victories are only half of what the Lakers need and Van Gundy spikes suggestions that the Rockets have already accomplished a lot by being competitive.

“You know what?” he said. “To me, you may have a mind-set that many may have -- and some of our players may even have, already thinking forward about the what-ifs if we lose.

“I have no plans on leading a team that way, into the what-ifs. We’ve got to win Game 3. That what-if scenario doesn’t even cross my mind and if it crossed any of our guys’ minds, we’ve got the wrong guys.”

Let’s just say he’s still on the darkhorse.

Bryant was not only great in Game 2 but back in balance, shooting and passing in both halves, rather than doing one to the exclusion of the other.

Vanessa Bryant, his wife, now waits outside the dressing room with their daughter Natalia when the Lakers come off the floor. When Kobe comes by, he picks up his little girl and lifts her in the air.

He isn’t talking to the press yet, but it’s still a better day in Lakerdom.