Lakers Are Just Good Enough

Nope, not easy yet, not with three superstars in the lineup, not at Staples Center for the first time in more than two weeks, not after five days off.

Hoping they could play themselves away from the trials and frailties of the season’s first half, the Lakers advanced themselves not at all Tuesday night, except by one victory.

They played into the final seconds against the rebuilt Portland Trail Blazers, they clung to Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, and in the end they won, 89-86.

“Not good enough to get the type of win we wanted,” Bryant said, “but good enough to win.”

Bryant, mostly whole again after sitting out so much of the last month with finger and shoulder injuries, scored 31 points, including the Lakers’ last three in the final 32 seconds, breaking an 86-86 tie. The Trail Blazers, game through the final buzzer, lost by the breadth of two late misses, by Shareef Abdur-Rahim from midrange and, as time expired, a running three-point attempt by Damon Stoudamire.

As “I Love L.A.” blared from overhead, Stoudamire stood beneath the basket and cringed at his near miss.

Bryant also had 10 assists, his season high, and eight rebounds. O’Neal had 21 points and 11 rebounds. Gary Payton had 15 points, all in the second half.

Five Trail Blazers scored in double figures. Ruben Patterson scored 11 of his 17 in the fourth quarter, which ended with the Lakers desperately denying pick-and-rolls, Rick Fox on Abdur-Rahim, everybody running at Stoudamire.

“I know we are going to do better,” O’Neal said.

And so the season’s symbolic second half began, the Lakers wanting to believe it will bear no resemblance to the first, when they lost 19 games to mediocre basketball and three of their four superstars to injury.

Karl Malone remains three or four weeks away, at least. Bryant said Monday that his right shoulder still stiffens on occasion, but that it was well enough Tuesday to hurl himself to the rim again. O’Neal wears a black sleeve over his right calf.

They want to believe they’ll gain on a largely unsightly 50 games, 3 1/2 months racked by on-floor inconsistency and off-floor drama. After a second day of rehabilitation on his knee, Malone sat at the end of the bench and laughed with teammates and joined the huddles.

Coach Phil Jackson said he believed the Lakers will need “a week or two” at full strength to prepare themselves for the playoffs, a figure that seems to decrease as the season builds.

They might have Malone for only the final week or two of the regular season, for now the worst-case scenario.

In a rare L.A. appearance, the Lakers forced some early offense at the Trail Blazers, who’ve traded away Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells and Jeff McInnis in the last two months, Wallace and McInnis since the Lakers last played Portland. The Trail Blazers held, pushed back on defense, missed a hail of long jumpers, and lost their sixth consecutive regular-season game at Staples.

O’Neal, as it turned out, took a day for himself after playing host to half the parties over the All-Star weekend and then winning the game’s most-valuable-player award.

Jackson wasn’t too critical, fined him a couple of hundred dollars or so and let O’Neal have at the Trail Blazers, who still don’t have a center.

O’Neal was energetic again too. In the second quarter, he dived for a loose ball and nearly crashed into the $1,800 seats.

As O’Neal pulled himself from the floor, Payton grinned and O’Neal laughed, and the crowd, taken by O’Neal’s determination, half rose in its ovation.

“That’s what I’m underpaid to do,” he said, laughing.

And Bryant was athletic again after a subdued return against the Houston Rockets late last week and an expressive exhibition game Sunday.

None of which did much for their ease of victory.

Jackson called it “the lethargy of post-All-Star Game delays,” and then they boarded a flight for Oakland.