Lakers Sinking Their Teeth Into Another Spring Roll

Shaquille O’Neal took Karl Malone by the sleeve Saturday morning, on their break before Game 2 of the Western Conference finals, and asked him about this summer, about what they’d do together, how they’d get stronger together.

“I always know he’s serious when he grabs my arm,” Malone said. “This morning he grabbed my arm.”

They have made it this far, going on a year since O’Neal started calling Malone in Arkansas, asking him to come to the Lakers and be his power forward.

They stand seven wins from the NBA championship they’d plotted about almost since Malone’s Utah Jazz were eliminated from last year’s playoffs and O’Neal’s Lakers followed them out two weeks later. The Lakers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night and play tonight for a lead that Gary Payton said “would probably take the wind out of them.”

Indeed, Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders, facing the possibility of Game 2 without point guard Sam Cassell, said, “Let’s face the facts, [tonight’s] a must-win game for us.”

Payton spent some time socializing with Cassell after Game 1 and reported Cassell was in a lot of pain, in his back and hip. His prediction that Cassell would play tonight sounded more like hopefulness for his friend than true optimism.

“He’s struggling,” Payton said. “His back is killing him, and it’s going into his hip. He needs rest.... The way he was walking last night, it didn’t look good.”

Meanwhile, the Lakers appear to be on one of those postseason rolls, when Kobe Bryant compares himself to and acts like a quarterback, O’Neal makes his free throws, Derek Fisher can hardly miss and everybody finds something to do on the defensive side. They’ve won five consecutive games, and O’Neal keeps whispering the same thing in Malone’s ear.

“That,” Malone said, “I can’t repeat.”

Asked about it, O’Neal grinned and said, “Have no fear, the Diesel’s here.”

The Lakers do look as if they could raise their feet and be carried along by O’Neal for a while. In his last six games, he has averaged 25.7 points and 15.3 rebounds and shot 63.2% from the field. He even has made 31 of his last 53 free throws, and all four in the fourth quarter Friday night. Late in that quarter, Bryant missed two, and as the Lakers walked from the floor, O’Neal was seen coaching his teammate on a finer point of the free throw.

“I just see, really, a laid-back guy,” Malone said of O’Neal. “He’s got that attitude where everything is going to be all right, kind of. He’s just playing.”

This is probably what O’Neal promised Malone last summer, that he’d play the regular season, but play the playoffs harder. For years, O’Neal has saved something more for May and June. And when the Lakers were average for months and then down, two games to none, to San Antonio in the conference semifinals, it came time for that, for all the things he’d told Malone.

“I’m stubborn enough to believe a guy,” Malone said. “All we have is our word. When a man looks at me in the eye, I believe him.”

These seem to be reflective days for Malone. He smiles a lot and won’t always reveal what lies beneath it.

He has hinted for weeks that he won’t play in the Olympics this summer so that he can spend more time with his family and continue to grieve the death of his mother, but won’t say it.

He might retire after this season, championship or not, but won’t confirm his apparent leanings. When O’Neal grabbed him and asked about their plans this summer, Malone hedged, because he might not have to train for basketball anymore.

“Exactly,” Malone said.

O’Neal seemed so enthusiastic, Malone became suspicious, saying, “I don’t know if he’s trying to hoodwink me into something.”

O’Neal would prefer Malone to stay around.

“It would be nice,” he said.

Malone gets a kick out of O’Neal. O’Neal has someone who won’t take his guff or bow to his darker moods.

“When we were down, 0-2, I told him don’t worry,” O’Neal said. “I told him to make sure that I get the ball, make sure that I’m able to be me. I’m more effective being me. I’m not effective being Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, Travis Knight and Mitch Kupchak. I’m more effective being me. And I have to have the ball to be me.”

Through the years, O’Neal said, “I started off hating him to liking him to really liking him. Now he’s like the elder statesman of the team that I never had. I came in by myself and I raised myself. Now I’ve got somebody I can ask questions to, can talk to and I can have a good time with. We’ve developed a great relationship.”

For the moment, they have Game 2. All of them.

The Lakers played reasonably well for most of Game 1, and very well in the final 2:47 of the third quarter, which they won, 11-0, and the final 2:57 of the fourth, which they won, 7-2.

Their hope is to continue to push their advantage of fresher legs and minds. O’Neal is getting bigger and better by the game, now drawing inspiration from magazine articles about free-throw shooting. If the rest of them have found their jump shots -- Fisher made four three-pointers, Malone made eight of his final nine shots, Bryant had his mid-range jumper back -- the Lakers figure on O’Neal for the rest, and that would be seven more victories.