Lakers Hit Wall at Finish

The Corvette survived the brick wall, a nice and tidy Laker memory for another day, but the Lakers couldn’t survive the most hyped regular-season game of this season, if not all others, providing a more lasting snapshot of the first meeting between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

With a phalanx of TV cameras and reporters on hand to document all that would happen, including the slightest sign of love or hate between the former-teammates-turned-rivals, Bryant scored a season-high 42 points and enticed O’Neal into fouling out, but the Miami Heat won in overtime, 104-102, in front of 18,997 Saturday at Staples Center.

In the end, Bryant missed his last five shots, including the potential game-winner, a three-point attempt over Dwyane Wade at the buzzer in overtime. The shot hit the left side of the rim and bounced away, the Heat won its team record-tying 11th consecutive game, and O’Neal’s old team fell to 14-12, entrenched in a win-lose-win-lose path that might or might not end with a playoff appearance.

“I didn’t get the balance that I would have liked on the shot, and as a consequence, the shot went left,” Bryant said.

O’Neal, standing in front of the Miami bench as the play unfolded in front of him, showed no emotion after the miss. He clapped four times and walked onto the court. The only Laker he talked to was forward Lamar Odom. Bryant went directly to the Laker locker room.

“I knew that it wasn’t going to go in,” O’Neal said. “It’s called ‘Shaq O’Neal fate.’ ”

Hours before, as cameras clicked and fans stood for the best view possible, there wasn’t as much of a pregame handshake as a half-hug. Bryant appeared to want to say a word or two, while O’Neal favored quick physical contact, wrapping half an arm around Bryant’s back, nothing more.

“Being married, I don’t want interplay or foreplay with another guy,” O’Neal said later, smiling.

The Lakers set a team record by attempting 36 three-pointers. They made 14.

Bryant had nine turnovers, one more than the Heat had as a team, and made 12 of 30 shots. O’Neal had 24 points on 11-for-19 shooting and had 11 rebounds before fouling out with 2:15 left in the fourth quarter.

Bryant, whether Corvette or Lamborghini or Hummer, went at the self-proclaimed brick wall five different times, with mostly successful endings for Bryant.

The initial advantage went to O’Neal, who blocked Bryant’s shot off a drive 20 seconds into the game. Bryant fared better on his next effort, making a seven-footer over O’Neal off a drive 22 seconds later.

“I backed the Hummer out of the garage and went straight to the bucket,” Bryant said.

They didn’t come into contact again until the first minute of the second quarter. Bryant found a path to the basket, and O’Neal, realizing who it was, closed in from the other side and briefly staggered Bryant with a stiff, but fair, foul.

O’Neal walked away and winked. Bryant made both free throws.

They had meaningful meetings two more times, both in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Bryant got the ball in the key and beat O’Neal with a crossover, drawing a fifth foul from O’Neal with 4:04 left in the quarter. Bryant then ended O’Neal’s afternoon by driving to the basket and drawing O’Neal’s sixth foul. Bryant made both free throws to give the Lakers a 93-91 lead.

“I felt that I had let my team down,” O’Neal said. “All day, I was saying to myself, no layups and no dunks. I kind of forgot I had five [fouls] at that point.

No layups and dunks for everybody?

“Basically everybody, but especially, you know, him,” O’Neal said.

Wade, who had 29 points, had two chances in the last minute to break a 94-94 tie, but he missed an 18-footer with 23 seconds left, and, after Christian Laettner kept the possession alive by tapping the rebound back out top, Wade missed a 20-footer at the buzzer.

Wade and Eddie Jones each had four points in overtime, and Laettner had two. Odom scored all eight Laker points.

O’Neal mused afterward that he knew he would get help from his teammates -- “I play with a lot of unselfish guys,” he said -- on a day when he was shadowed from the time he set foot on the Staples Center loading dock.

“The arena that I built,” O’Neal said twice to a horde of TV cameras as he walked through the corridors under the arena.

After the game, O’Neal said he missed a lot about his former city, reeling off a list of people and places, among them L.A. police officers and the Beverly Center. He also noted what he didn’t miss -- traffic and “two or three people.”

Which two or three people?

“I don’t know,” he said. “Their names have been erased out of my memory bank.”

Bryant, who walked into the arena amid much less fanfare -- only one camera tracked him from car to locker room -- had played down the game all week long, but his post-practice remarks Friday belied his apparent nonchalance.

“I thought his closing comments in practice were great,” Laker Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “He talked about keeping our poise, doing our jobs, not making this bigger than it was. It was fantastic. I don’t think I needed to add anything to that.”

Afterward, Bryant said he’d seen and heard enough of the Shaq-Kobe hype.

“Hopefully this is all behind us now,” he said. “I think everybody’s kind of got the first game out of their system, and now we can just move on and talk about basketball.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Losing Steam

Bryant’s period-by-period breakdown:

*--* 1ST QUARTER FG-A FG% FT-A 3PT-A Pts A TO 5-8 625 1-1 4-6 15 1 1 2ND QUARTER FG-A FG% FT-A 3PT-A Pts A TO 1-5 200 3-3 0-2 5 2 3 3RD QUARTER FG-A FG% FT-A 3PT-A Pts A TO 5-8 625 2-2 1-2 13 2 1 4TH QUARTER FG-A FG% FT-A 3PT-A Pts A TO 1-6 167 7-7 0-1 9 1 3 OVERTIME FG-A FG% FT-A 3PT-A PTS A TO 0-3 000 0-0 0-2 0 0 1

*--*