Lakers, Shaq Swear Off Winning

Shaquille O’Neal had his say, and the Lakers were blown out a day later by the Indiana Pacers.

Gary Payton smiled wearily and Horace Grant shook his head and Rick Fox insisted he understood O’Neal’s irritation with the system, then added, “If the year’s going to be filled with injuries, we definitely don’t need something else to pop up.”

Suspended earlier in the day for one game by the NBA for his profane language during a live television interview on Sunday, O’Neal remained at the hotel Monday night as the Lakers were beaten, 85-72, in front of a delirious sellout crowd at Conseco Fieldhouse.

Phil Jackson scolded the league for depriving the fans of their chance to see O’Neal in his annual visit and strode onto the floor just as they cheered the announcement O’Neal would not play.

Apparently, they’d seen enough of O’Neal over the years.

The Pacers played without injured Jermaine O’Neal and didn’t play all that well, and didn’t need to; the Lakers scored 10 points in the first quarter, and after 21 minutes had nearly as many airballs (six) as field goals (seven). They eventually set season lows for points and field-goal percentage (34.7), paced by Payton (four for 17 from the field) and Derek Fisher (four for 15).

Ron Artest scored 24 points on 27 shots for the Pacers, who led by 10 in the first quarter and 22 in the second before the Lakers composed themselves, made some shots (12 of 17 in the third quarter) and once drew to within nine points in the fourth quarter.

That was about it for the Lakers, who continued to sustain hits of injury and status. On Monday, as the Lakers played the team Jackson declared “the odds-on favorite to come out of the East,” Kobe Bryant -- on the injured list because of a cut on the index finger of his shooting hand -- reportedly was too ill to attend a motions hearing in Eagle, Colo., Karl Malone apparently was at his ranch in Arkansas and O’Neal was definitely somewhere in Indianapolis.

Kareem Rush, who has played heavy minutes in place of Bryant, sprained his right ankle in the third quarter, did not return and is questionable for Wednesday’s game in Cleveland. X-rays were negative. He won’t go on the injured list; it’s full.

“I’m not going to be out that long, I don’t think,” Rush said.

Meanwhile, as Bryant heals from what he said was an accident in his home that he said left him with 10 stitches, the Lakers have three guards -- Payton, Fisher and Maurice Carter, who arrived Friday from the CBA. Jackson said he hoped to have Bryant on Sunday against the Orlando Magic, when he is eligible to come off the injured list, but no one knows for sure. No one from the team has even seen the wound. Bryant is expected to join the team in Cleveland on Wednesday, though the club did not know whether his reported illness would delay him.

All of which got the Lakers to Monday night at risk of great humiliation. Jackson had decided to start Fox at small forward and bench the unproductive Devean George, then changed his mind when O’Neal was suspended. He believed George would be more effective in an open game, was wrong about George again, and ended up playing Fox 28 minutes to George’s 18.

Jackson also shoveled big minutes at Payton, Grant and Fisher, in part to give the Lakers a chance to come back, in part because the Lakers have today off. In part, too, perhaps, to keep his sanity, in a season that got weird four months before opening day and just kept splintering.

“If this didn’t happen, I’d quit,” Jackson said before the game, a wry smile growing beneath his silvery mustache. “It’d be too boring. This happens, there’s a little bit of life, then we can come here and do something different now. We went through a whole shoot-around this morning planning on how we’re going to get the ball into Shaquille. Now we can spend five minutes figuring out what we’re going to do without him.”

He admitted, “There’s never been anything quite like this in my tenure as a coach.”

The Lakers are 28-17, still living on their 18-3 start, still clinging to the hope that Malone and Bryant and O’Neal will return and play well and keep the postgame interviews clean.

“I gotta talk to Big,” Payton said of O’Neal, “tell him to be quiet a little more.”

But, he said, “It happened. We can’t bring it back. It’s over with. He got suspended. He comes back Wednesday, and I know he’s going to be mad. ... Once we get everybody back on the floor, we’ll forget it.”

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THE PENALTY

Shaquille O’Neal was suspended for Monday’s game at Indiana for using obscene language and criticizing the officials in a TV interview after Sunday’s victory over Toronto. Based on his salary of $24.75 million, the suspension cost O’Neal nearly $275,000.