Plot’s Promising, Dialogue Is Flat

No Corvette-hitting-brick-wall analogies. No Lamborghini rebuttals.

The run-up to the second annual Christmas Day game between the Lakers and Miami Heat has had more of a pedestrian feel, with Pat Riley and Phil Jackson being kind to each other, and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant saying nothing that would snare a headline (or saying nothing, period, as was O’Neal’s choice Saturday).

A year ago, as a city paused to see whether Bryant and O’Neal would acknowledge each other before tip-off, the game was “The Game,” no ifs, ands or snubs about it.

A year later, San Antonio against Detroit, today’s precursor on ABC, has the teams with better-looking records and more realistic championship aspirations.

But there’s always that chance that something can sneak up and add a little zing to Lakers-Heat II, a glimpse of it coming Friday night as the Lakers left for Miami from Orlando via the Heat team plane.

It looked innocent enough from the outside, but when players and coaches ambled aboard, they noticed Heat logos on the plane’s interior. (Laker planes are chartered through an NBA service, according to a team spokesman.)

Bryant, lips pursed, asked with a trace of confusion, “This is the Heat plane?”

When told that it was, Bryant shrugged his shoulders and offered a few simple words.

“All right, then.”

The Lakers, sitting comfortably, if not surprisingly, at 15-11, can take things a little more in stride than they did a year ago. They are half a game better than the Heat, which went without O’Neal for 18 games because of a sprained ankle, and have won seven of their last eight road games.

It’s enough to make O’Neal slightly more hyped for the game, no?

“You’d have to ask him about that,” said Heat Coach Pat Riley, a sensible enough request, except for one problem.

O’Neal wasn’t talking.

Said Riley: “He’s very upset with the loss [Friday] night [to New Jersey]. We did not play well offensively. I think he’s more upset about [Friday] night, but I just hope he bounces back [today].”

Bryant, for his part, was available, answering any question sent his way, including those about O’Neal.

“It’s nothing to me, to be honest with you,” he said. “I get up for every single game. This is no different to me.

“We had a great run, three rings. I think people should just leave it the hell alone. Move on.”

There was anticipation last year about who would arrive first at Staples Center and how the former-teammates-turned-rivals would greet each other, if at all.

There shouldn’t be any expectations of an acknowledgment this time: Bryant said there wouldn’t be one, as per his custom throughout the season.

“It’s pretty much the same thing I’ve been doing all year,” he said. “I just try to start a ballgame, I go out and I [tap fists] with the team. If someone wants to come over and [greet] us, then we’ll do that. It’s a mind-set that we have here with this team where it’s us against them, no matter who we’re playing against, whether it’s the [Toronto] Raptors or the [Washington] Wizards or the Heat.”

(Last year, as fans stood for a better view and cameras clicked, there was a pregame half-hug between the two, Bryant appearing to want to say a word or two, while O’Neal favored quick physical contact, wrapping half an arm around Bryant’s back, nothing more.)

Before the game, won by the Heat in overtime, 104-102, O’Neal said it would be like a Corvette hitting a brick wall if Bryant penetrated the lane, and Bryant rebutted by saying O’Neal had the make and model all wrong, proclaiming himself to be more of a Lamborghini.

Bryant had 42 points but also nine turnovers and missed his final five shots, including the potential game-winner, a three-point attempt over Dwyane Wade that hit the left side of the rim and bounced away, what the Big Pontificator would later call “Shaq O’Neal fate.”

Jackson, who coached O’Neal for five seasons before they each departed in the summer of 2004, could only guess what O’Neal thought about playing the Lakers again.

“I think there is something there still, but it’s not like last year where he came in early and did his Santa day in L.A., magnanimous guy that he is,” Jackson said. “I don’t think it’s going to be the same type of thing, but it’s going to be a competition and it’s going to be heated in a certain way.”