It’s Tough but Lakers Find a Way Minus Shaq

For nearly a basketball eternity, this was just big miss-match--the Lakers and Seattle SuperSonics kept matching miss for miss and clang for clang.

Then things got hotter, the shooting picked up, Glen Rice fired in a gigantic fall-away jumper to send it into overtime and the Lakers pulled it out, 106-103, Monday night before 18,997 at Staples Center.

A first-round playoff preview? Without Shaquille O’Neal in the Laker lineup for the second straight game because of a sprained ankle, and without the SuperSonics being able to muster any kind of consistent offense, this meeting was mainly muddled.

Can the Lakers survive without O’Neal? For a while, it looked like they couldn’t even score without his presence.

Can the Lakers (65-13), assuming O’Neal is back soon, figure that they’ll overwhelm Seattle in a possible first-round meeting?

Hard to tell, but if the SuperSonics get 28 points from backup guard Shammond Williams (but only three from Olympic team member Vin Baker) and scramble as wildly as they did Monday, anything’s possible.

“I think they wanted to step up and play like they believed in themselves tonight, and I think they felt good about themselves,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said.

As might be expected, Rice (28 points) and Kobe Bryant (33) were just about the entire Laker offense, and, after a sluggish first half, they were electrifying.

To get to overtime, Rice took Robert Horry’s inbounds pass with 1.4 seconds, pump-faked Jelani McCoy, then swished the shot from 21 feet.

In overtime, Rick Fox made a three-pointer with 2:02 left to give the Lakers a 100-98 lead, SuperSonic Ruben Patterson’s offensive foul wiped out a Seattle basket, and Rice made two free throws with 10.4 left.

After Williams made another three-pointer, Fox found A.C. Green free downcourt for a slam dunk with 4.7 seconds left to give the Lakers a three-point lead.

Vernon Maxwell missed a running three-point attempt at the buzzer.

“I just think that he steps into the vacuum whenever there’s an opportunity for him to,” Jackson said of Rice.

SuperSonic Coach Paul Westphal could only shake his head afterward.

“Who’d have thought it’d be a shoot-around between Shammond Williams and Lazaro Borrell and Kobe Bryant and Glen Rice?” Westphal said.

The Lakers held a hard-fought 90-83 lead with just under three minutes to play, but then it swiftly unraveled--Williams made a three-pointer and a layup, Horace Grant got a tip-in, Bryant missed a shot and turned the ball over on the next possession.

Suddenly, the game was tied, 92-92, with only 35.7 seconds to play.

After Rice missed a jumper, Bryant fouled Williams with 12.1 seconds left, and he made both free throws.

The SuperSonics tipped away a Laker pass, which set up Rice’s dramatic shot from the right side to beat the fourth-quarter buzzer.

After a shooting struggle in the first half, Bryant caught fire in the third, making seven of his nine shot tries and scoring 16 points in that period alone, leading the Lakers to a blistering 34-point effort.

That was only five points short of what they tallied in first two quarters combined.

Bryant’s burst, plus continued SuperSonic shooting woes, gave the Lakers a 73-60 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

But with Bryant taking a break to start the fourth, the SuperSonics cut the lead to 75-73 once the Laker offense bogged down.

Bryant got back in with 7:17 left to play, and immediately passed to Brian Shaw for a three-pointer, then Fox got a steal and followed up with a fastbreak jumper to stretch the lead back to 80-73 with 6:08 left.

The SuperSonic defeat makes it that much more likely that the No. 1-seeded Lakers will open the playoffs at Staples against Seattle, currently the No. 8- seeded team in the Western Conference and now trailing Sacramento by 1 1/2 games.

Baker, the one SuperSonic post player who could’ve taken most advantage of O’Neal’s absence, went out and picked up three fouls in the first 6:31--two of them on the offensive side, matched against John Salley.

That meant that Baker was out for the rest of the half.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LAKERS

COVERAGE

O’NEAL GETS

SOME TIME OFF

Shaquille O’Neal sat out his second consecutive game and will get eight days of rest for his sprained left ankle. Page 9

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PLAYOFF

PICTURE

Playoff pairings if season ended today:

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Lakers

vs. Seattle

Utah

vs. Sacramento

Portland

vs. Minnesota

Phoenix

vs. San Antonio

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EASTERN CONFERENCE

Indiana

vs. Orlando

Miami

vs. Detroit

New York

vs. Toronto

Philadelphia

vs. Charlotte