Kings Get a Reminder of Real Rivals

The rapping on the psyche of the Sacramento Kings was loud, insistent, annoying.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

The Lakers.

Are they ever.

What is currently the Western Conference’s best team is once again its most haunted, the Kings’ heads being swiftly and stunningly occupied Wednesday by a Laker team that has been inside there before.

The standings will reflect that the 115-91 Laker victory was only one game, but don’t believe everything you read.

Believe, instead, the stunned looks on the Kings’ faces when they realized, oh, so this is what the real Laker team looks like.

Believe the joy in the Laker faces when they found themselves in complete agreement.

The first meeting between these teams featuring the Lakers’ four future Hall of Famers was no meeting, it was a mauling.

It was Kobe Bryant leaving the legal fight for his life and again playing one of the games of his life, flying in from Eagle, Colo., just in time to fly across the paint, again and again.

Facing his rape accuser in the morning and appearing in a different court at night didn’t as much confuse him as engage him, Bryant picking up 36 points, six rebounds, six assists and a second victory on hearing days.

“It’s been an interesting, long day,” Bryant said in his only brush with understatement.

It was also Gary Payton schooling Mike Bibby, then simply suffocating him, exacting revenge on the counterpart who embarrassed him in Sacramento’s last visit here, a new ballgame indeed.

It was, too, Shaquille O’Neal playing as if Sacramento’s new inside weapon, Brad Miller, was just as nonexistent as the old ones who clanked against him for years.

And, sinking slowly into a comfort zone like an old guy in a new easy chair, Karl Malone showed up to make his opponents mad and his teammates better.

“This was kind of a throwback game to the way we played at the start of the season,” said Bryant, not needing to note that the Lakers are now 22-6 with their four studs and only two games behind the Kings in the loss column with 11 games remaining.

It was also a throwing back of the Kings’ fishy celebrations after they won each of the first two meetings between the two teams, including a late win at Staples that featured Bibby’s cross-court victory shuffle.

Bibby, incidentally, danced to four baskets in 16 attempts Wednesday, the basketball version of two left feet.

“That’s just them,” said Bryant. “When they win, they brag and boast a lot. That’s why we have to beat them, to keep them down.”

Come the playoffs, this beating may have doubled in size, the Kings’ memories traditionally as long as their jump shots.

The Kings believe, correctly, that they would have won at least one NBA championship if it wasn’t for the Lakers.

The Lakers know that the Kings are probably the one thing that is standing between them and a fourth title in five years.

The Kings thought they had erased some of those questions earlier this year, but now they must surely be thinking different.

Now they must be wondering, here we go again?

The Lakers are no doubt pondering the same four words, only with that question mark being replaced by an exclamation point.

When asked whether this made the Kings think, O’Neal said, “Of course it did. They know if they want to get through the West, they have to go through us.”

Down the hall, Peja Stojakovic acknowledged: “They jumped on us. More energy. I don’t know what to say.”

No, this wasn’t just another regular season game, or maybe you weren’t listening to Jeffrey Osborne sing the national anthem, summoned last week for a rare midweek appearance, like bringing in Eric Gagne in the seventh.

“This is the one that will sort of be a landmark game for us,” Phil Jackson was saying beforehand, later adding, “It will be a mark that we use in the next game against them ... and in the playoffs [if] the two of us go against each other.”

The mark was made early, when Bryant hit four of his first shots and happy-again Payton hit two layups and the Lakers took a 23-10 lead before Shaquille O’Neal had even scored a point.

With his dives and defense and, yes, even his passing, what Bryant is doing this season has become as extraordinary as the pressure under which he is doing it.

Certainly, he still shoots too much. Obviously, he still forgets his teammates too often.

But, goodness, when a man is the league MVP since the All-Star break and the shoulders of a team that one thought might have to carry him, some slack must be cut.

“I just keep putting my faith in God,” Bryant said.

In other departments, the Lakers outrebounded the Kings by 22, outshot them by 10 percentage points, and even had one more assist than basketball’s best bunch of passers.

“It says something,” said Jackson of this game.

Two different things for two different teams.

“Oh, yeah,” and, “Oh, no.”

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.