Crying Foul Is Becoming Real Game for Lakers

There were 3 minutes 18 seconds remaining in the second quarter Wednesday night, when, according to the Internet, the Lakers had officially defeated the Boston Celtics, 117-109.

Channel 9 had the tape-delayed score 57-51 at the time in favor of the Lakers, which is just one more frustration that comes with following this team.

But the important thing is the team won, and so all is right in the Lakers’ world -- until the next loss. Then who knows this time who will be whining, crying or otherwise complaining about their state of life.

At the very least, I guess we can all be happy that none of the referees had it in for any of the Lakers in Boston, giving our guys the chance to win.

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I SUPPOSE it will be fun if the Lakers go on to win the NBA Finals, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to root for a bunch of babies, beginning with the biggest of them all.

If you listen to the Lakers and Coach Phil Jackson, referee Bob Delaney is “prejudiced” against Shaq. No one seems to know why, but he blows his whistle a lot when assigned to Laker games and the Lakers don’t think that’s fair.

The other night Shaq was ejected because Delaney is “prejudiced,” the Lakers were up by four points, and then they stopped playing while Utah went on an 11-0 run. So much for learning about athletes and how they respond to adversity.

When things don’t go well for Shaq, as we are constantly reminded through the controversial course of a season, he responds by pouting, swearing or suggesting all the Laker woes of the world would be solved by just passing him the ball. It gets very tedious.

Throw in Kobe Bryant’s problems, the mystery surrounding his future and the recent bellyaching from Gary Payton, and are these guys really your heroes?

I’m not sure Laker fans have ever fully embraced Jackson, and as far as I can tell, the aloof one only embraces Jeanie.

It almost seems too much to ask -- for the millions and millions they are paid -- to just play basketball and let their talent dominate and bring joy to everyone.

Of course, if they do win it all, everything will be forgiven and there will be dancing in the streets, carried live by Channel 9.

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WHEN YOU analyze the whole Terrell Owens’ situation, you can hardly call him a sharpie.

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OWENS’ PLEA to negate a trade to Baltimore and make him a free agent will be heard by Steven Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania.

Kriss Halpern e-mailed to say he attended Penn Law School and took a pair of law school classes from Burbank, and he’s willing to wager that Owens doesn’t have a chance of winning his case in front of Burbank. He said Burbank drilled his students on the value of critical procedure, and “Owens simply missed the deadline” to declare himself a free agent.

Halpern said that if he’s wrong, he’ll give 2% of his 2004 income after taxes (to charity), which suggests to me he’s unemployed, and if he’s right, he wants a date with the daughter, who then must agree to do his taxes at no charge.

So far, she’s balking; she has to be convinced the guy isn’t an attorney. She said she wants a date, but not that badly.

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FOR A guy working at an institution of higher education, USC basketball Coach Henry Bibby sure says some stupid things. Bibby, 129-108 in eight seasons at USC, said, “This isn’t Arizona or Stanford. What does everyone expect?”

That’s easier to answer than those questions on Jim Harrick Jr.’s Georgia quiz. Why isn’t USC an Arizona or Stanford in basketball? At the very least, in a down year for the Pac-10, Trojan fans deserved better results than what they got from Bibby’s team.

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THINGS ARE no better on the other side of town. Plaschke quoted former UCLA coach Steve Lavin on Wednesday saying: “To characterize the current UCLA roster as a group of ragamuffins is inaccurate and unfair. They have the potential to have three NBA first-round draft picks on this team, and five players who could eventually play at the next level.”

Just the facts. Wednesday’s sports section also offered this announcement: “UCLA did not have a player on the All-Pacific 10 Conference team for the first time since 1959-60.”

Either Lavin is wrong, or those NBA nuggets got lousy coaching from Ben Howland this season. (I saw a couple of Bruin games this season, and from what I saw, those NBA nuggets must have been home studying.)

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MY FAVORITE comment so far from Dodgers’ spring training: “I was real fresh last September,” Eric Gagne said. “I was ready for the playoffs.”

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LEON VICTOR e-mailed to say he saw this on the Dodgers’ website: “[David] Ross is still the backup catcher to [Paul] Lo Duca. Ross also is emerging as the Dodgers’ most threatening right-handed power hitter.... “

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DAVE WILKINS e-mailed about what Derrick Hall, the Dodgers’ vice president of communications, said here after fans were turned away from buying Yankee tickets. Hall said, “ ... Rather than leave with nothing, they bought tickets for other games with the Giants, or maybe for July 4th.”

As Wilkins noted, “That would be great except the Dodgers are playing the Angels that day. In Anaheim.”

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Charles McAfee:

” ... I have disliked you for a long time now, but have never chosen to write you simply because I didn’t think you were worth the time. But [Tuesday] you were paying homage to the Yankees.... “

I can see how valuable your time is.

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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.