Lakers Can Feel the Love

Phil Jackson benched Gary Payton for the entire fourth quarter Sunday night.

Same went for Kobe Bryant. Rick Fox. Horace Grant.

“It’s cool,” Payton said, his head cocked, his grin back.

By then, the Lakers were up 24, on their way to 28, on their way to a rout of the New Jersey Nets, 100-83, at Continental Airlines Arena.

After a couple of days spent shifting their eyes from Payton to Jackson and back, the Lakers returned to their Manhattan hotel having won road games on consecutive nights for the first time in nearly three months. Payton had 16 points and five assists in 29 minutes, and was perfectly satisfied afterward.

“You guys should ask him about Phil every day,” Shaquille O’Neal said.

Because of legal hearings in Colorado, they’ll lose Kobe Bryant for today’s team flight and practice in Atlanta and probably for the game against the Hawks on Tuesday night. But they’ll gain Karl Malone in the practice, Payton now playfully pushing Malone to play Friday night, the prospects for which have lightened their moods considerably.

When they look beyond all that ailed them for going on 60 games, the Lakers see their Big Four together for the first time since Dec. 21, the night Malone tore a ligament in his right knee.

They are 18-15 since, including Sunday’s remarkably easy win, their seventh in eight games since the All-Star break, since O’Neal and Bryant reminded each other to hate the other guys more. And while they like Slava Medvedenko just fine, all things considered they’ve got their hearts set on Malone, and trying to do something over the final six weeks that might correct the last three months.

As the Lakers played themselves away from the Nets in the first half, Jackson said he told his players, “This is much easier than it is supposed to be. [You] should get ready for the charge the Nets are going to lay on us.”

But, Jackson said, “We never got it.”

So, despite Thursday night’s loss to the Sacramento Kings and Payton’s subsequent complaints, the Lakers put double-digit beatings on the Washington Wizards and the Nets, a team that had won 15 of its previous 16 games. The news wasn’t any better for the Nets afterward. Point guard Jason Kidd has had a bruised knee for going on a week. It worsened Sunday to the point he will have an MRI exam today.

Kidd was clearly struggling, and the Nets went with him.

O’Neal had 19 points and 14 rebounds, 11 in the second half. A day after his ninth career triple-double, Bryant had 11 points (on only 12 shots), 10 assists and six rebounds. Bryant assisted on each of O’Neal’s first five field goals, and in two days has spent 10 assists on O’Neal. Grant had 14 points, a season high, and seven rebounds in 23 minutes.

Some nights, particularly in the East, it is simply that easy. In places, the Lakers were simply too good.

“They’re playing at a high level,” Jackson said. “They know they are. We feel like we’re starting to peak and are in a position we can start thinking positive about our postseason.”

They were happy. O’Neal had a handful of very large, very loud dunks, one of which landed on Jason Collins, another of which was a left-handed alley-oop.

“Throw it up there,” O’Neal said. “I’ll get it. Left hand. Right hand. Feet. Lips.”

Whatever. He laughed. The new controversy was elsewhere. Bryant is sharing. O’Neal’s free throws are better than awful. And, after all, who would you rather be? The surging Nets, a franchise-record 11-2 in February, playing some of the best basketball in their history, and unable to stay within a quarter of the Minnesota Timberwolves, or the Lakers? Or the Lakers, still beat up, still wondering, still curious to see who cares enough to be around next year?

Grant looked around after the game and said, “Luh-of. Can you smell it? It’s love.”

He laughed like a man who’d seen a hundred of those days, spent somewhere between feeling bad and playing well, the game dashing to pieces the enmity. During a timeout in the third quarter, the public-address system played James Brown, and Grant danced, just let it go.

“Just playing with some of the fans over there,” he said. “Keeping it light.”