Laker Win Not Exactly One for the Scrapbook

For a moment, with the adrenaline still pumping and the exhilaration of roaring back from an 18-point deficit to snag a victory on the road swirling in their heads, the Lakers reacted as if they really had accomplished something Sunday afternoon.

The final buzzer sounded after a couple of big shots and bold defensive plays, the scoreboard read Lakers 98, Magic 96, and Gary Payton screamed at Devean George: “What?!”

“What?!” George yelled back.

It wasn’t until they had a chance to cool down that the cold, harsh answers finally came.

What should they take away from this victory over the Magic?

“This was not a win to feel good about,” Rick Fox said.

What did this game say about the Lakers?

“We have a lot of work to do,” Shaquille O’Neal said.

What’s up with Bryon Russell getting a did-not-play coach’s-decision for the first time this season?

“You have to ask dude,” Russell said, dude being shorthand for Coach Phil Jackson.

What else does Jackson have in mind?

“I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do, but I’m going to make some adjustments to the starting lineup, starting there,” Jackson said.

What about Luke Walton in at forward for the foul-prone Slava Medvedenko if the matchups allow for it? It’s a possibility, which brings up another question, the only one that every player was more than happy to address: What about the way that Walton kid played Sunday?

Jackson sent Walton, George, Derek Fisher, Kareem Rush and Horace Grant on the floor with the Lakers trailing by 14 points to start the fourth quarter. The Lakers ran their offense through Walton, and he responded by dishing out six assists and knocking down a short jumper, in addition to grabbing a rebound and blocking a shot on the defensive end.

O’Neal called Walton “a great player.”

Payton compared Walton to a quarterback, but not any old quarterback.

“He was just like Joe Montana in the Super Bowl,” Payton said.

But every good Laker storyline had its downside on this day.

The reason that Jackson doesn’t use Walton more often, other than the fact that Jackson hates playing rookies, is that teams will exploit his inaccurate jump shot or his defense. Jackson was one or two possessions too late in sending Grant back into the game, so after Walton propelled the Lakers to the lead (prompting ABC to come back from a commercial break with a Luke Walton highlight reel), the Magic isolated Juwan Howard against him and Howard made three straight jumpers to put the Magic back ahead by three with 1:21 left.

“I didn’t think we had lost it,” Walton said. “But I thought I was playing good D, and he kept putting them in. It’s kind of personal when they’re running the four-draw for the man you’re guarding.”

Don’t worry, happens to the best of ‘em. That’s why Fox wasn’t savoring the three-pointer he made that tied the score with 11.7 seconds remaining. It still left him 32 points behind his primary defensive assignment, Magic star Tracy McGrady.

“I couldn’t even really enjoy the shot tonight, because of the way Tracy played,” Fox said. “That’s the most frustrating thing for someone that considers himself a defensive player. But I’m glad I was able to tie the game and put us in a position to win.”

Meanwhile, Fisher was about to be the goat after missing a three-pointer and a layup in the final minute. Then he reached in and swiped the ball from Magic point guard Rod Strickland and passed to Payton for the game-winning layup.

It was an exciting game, a dramatic game. And that was the problem.

“We won by two, but we really should have beat this team by 20 or 30,” O’Neal said.

Instead, they had to scramble back because they couldn’t guard anyone in the second and third quarters. While the Lakers couldn’t find a way to get the ball to O’Neal, the Magic executed its offense at will, with McGrady hitting open jumpers off high screens, Strickland driving into the paint, and the likes of Gordan Giricek and Zaza Pachulia scoring whenever the ball touched their hands. Orlando scored on 14 of its first 15 possessions and shot 81% in the second quarter and put up 60 points in the middle two quarters.

But the Lakers got the two stops they absolutely needed with Fisher’s steal and Payton’s block of Giricek’s jumper on the game’s final play.

The fact that they needed big plays to beat the team with the worst record in the league ... well, that’s another story.

“The way we played today was not an indication of a championship team,” Fox said. “But we have a lot of time to get better.”

Do they have enough time to reach their full potential? After game No. 48, they’re closer to the end of the season than the beginning, closer to the Memphis Grizzlies in the standings than the Sacramento Kings. While everyone thinks they’ll be fine once Kobe Bryant and Karl Malone return from injuries, there’s already the acknowledgement that the multitude of injuries robbed them of the chance to have a truly special season.

“If we had our whole team here, I think we would be a good defensive team right now,” Payton said. “ ‘Cause Karl would be a better defensive player, he would be stripping people. Kobe would be great on the ball. I would have been off the ball, chasing people. And then we would have had a second unit defense too. But we didn’t have that. We had injuries. I wish we could have been together for the whole year. We probably would have been a great defensive team right now.”

Instead, they’re still more about potential than results, still great in concept if not in action, still so stuck in the gap between expectations and production that they couldn’t even raise a glass to toast a fun Sunday afternoon game.

“It’s an emotional team win for us, which is good,” Jackson said. “And yet we’re sober about our abilities.”

No need to put the championship champagne order in yet.

*

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