Full-Contact Basketball Crafts a Fun Saturday

No reason to bring the NFL back to town if we can get the Lakers and Spurs to agree to a series of 16 Sunday showdowns this fall.

The last few years the Rams were here, I don’t remember any of them hitting any harder than Karl Malone & Co., and if you think about it, can you name a Ram from those teams who would’ve been willing to try and block Shaquille O’Neal?

I said “block” Shaq, not kiss him on the cheek, although I have no doubt Georgia Frontiere would’ve stopped Shaq in his tracks.

I guess we know now why NBA players don’t play hard every night, or give it their all during the regular season. If they played at the frenetic pace at which they competed Saturday night, I worry that Fox’s Jack Haley might try to match their intensity, and could you handle that?

This was full-contact basketball, each foul prompting a contentious glare or angry argument, and when the gritty game was over and the Lakers had advanced, we had learned several things:

* When the free throws count, as Shaq predicted, he will make them. The folks in San Antonio were just as surprised as you were, although nowhere near as happy.

* Kobe Bryant is just as good a street-ball performer, if the circumstances call for it, as he is an NBA All-Star. His final slam over Tim Duncan with less than two minutes left made it a certainty that we haven’t seen the last of Bryant in Staples Center yet.

* The defending NBA champs, armed with desperation, reminded Laker fans just how important that final 0.4 seconds was in San Antonio -- preventing a return trip. No need for the Lakers to press their luck.

* The daughter who can’t get a date attended the game with a male companion, and at last check with only a few seconds left, he hadn’t left without her.

Yes sir, don’t know how you can have much more fun on a Saturday night.

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FOR THE NBA conspiracy theorists who think the Lakers must play on in the playoffs to keep a TV audience, the referees didn’t call the Lakers for a foul until there was 1:49 left in the first quarter. By then the refs had hit San Antonio with six -- ignoring the mugging Malone gave Rasho Nesterovic. Maybe they thought Nesterovic deserved it. Maybe they thought the rest of the country would be more interested in watching Malone next week instead of the other guy.

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A NUMBER of concerned Laker fans noticed that Larry David walked into the building and wanted to know where he would be sitting. David sat courtside in a 2001 episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and accidentally tripped and injured Shaq. David took almost the same seat he had in that show; the Lakers must have been concerned -- they had trainer Gary Vitti sitting next to him.

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BRYANT WORE a huge gold sweatband around the lower portion of his right leg to cover a deep wound. He said San Antonio’s Bruce Bowen had taken to tripping him every time Bryant beat him on offense, and on one of those occasions Bowen’s shoe had taken a significant bite out of his leg.

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DURING THE “Kiss Me” sequence on the overhead scoreboard, the camera focused on Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Hanks didn’t look as if he was acting when he planted one on his wife. The camera also found new Raider Coach Norv Turner, and from the crowd’s reaction, apparently there were no Raider fans in attendance. I guess it would be tough to get a ticket for a playoff game if you were just getting out on parole.

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I ALSO caught Van Earl Wright’s entertaining act on the overhead scoreboard during halftime. Wright does a recap of the sports day for the Southern California something or other. It’s too bad he couldn’t do the same on a regular basis for a show people might watch.

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CHATTED WITH Eric Gagne the other day about his incredible streak of 73 consecutive saves. He said he doesn’t regard them as saves but rather as wins for the team. The Dodgers saved $3 million, and also considered it a win when the team argued successfully to a arbitrator that Gagne should not be paid more. (Makes you wonder what that arbitrator is thinking now.)

Gagne said when it comes time to take the field in a save situation, and his in-laws are at the game, they get up and leave. They can’t watch him perform, he said, because it’s too stressful. They can tell by the noise from the stadium whether he’s been successful or not, but during the streak they have missed every one of his pitches.

His wife watches, “but her stomach gets upset and she gets all nervous and tied up,” Gagne said. “She saw all the struggles when I was a starter, and then sent to the minors and so she’s really excited about this, but also always nervous.”

The most calm guy in the park is Gagne, who likes to have fun on occasion “when I can’t get hurt in the situation,” throwing his slow-slow changeup.

“They see this big balloon coming at them after seeing 95 and 96 mph pitches and they can’t hold back on the 72 to 73 mph pitches,” he said. “I shouldn’t say it’s funny, but sometimes it really is.”

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DODGERS LOSE. Dodgers lose.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Sam Garcia:

“Why are you abusing your position as a writer in order to voice your hatred for the Dodgers.... You live and make a living in Los Angeles. The readers pay your salary, you do us a disservice by bashing the Dodgers.... I can understand if you don’t like them as a fan, but as a journalist I think you should be unbiased. I don’t pick up the paper to read your opinion ...”

Don’t complain to me about the mistakes you make in your life.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.