Lakers Almost Mail It In

By Tim Brown

March 29, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The Sacramento Kings and Minnesota Timberwolves safely out of town, the Lakers went back to their usual game Sunday night, playing just to the edge of necessity without actually falling in.

They beat the Utah Jazz, 91-84, at Staples Center, though not before giving back all of a 16-point lead, and not before they misplaced their three-day commitment to ball movement and defense.

The Lakers won their eighth consecutive game, and for the 19th time in 23 games since the All-Star break. These, however, were not the dynamic Lakers of last week, when their routs of the Kings and Timberwolves moved the NBA to wonder what was coming from the West Coast.

These, on a sleepy night in which Karl Malone played his franchise of 18 seasons for the first time, were the predictable Lakers of previous weeks, when Kobe Bryant dribbled and shot and nearly everyone else dutifully backpedaled to the defensive end. As a result, a big lead fell away, and the Lakers were forced to win at the free-throw line, shooting 20 of them in the fourth quarter alone, when the Jazz fouled down the stretch.

Appearing bored and quite possibly irritated, the rest of the Lakers watched Bryant score 34 points on 23 field-goal attempts and 21 free throws. In the afterglow of their impressive victories against the Western Conference elite, the Lakers had a season-low 12 assists and Shaquille O’Neal, after scoring 11 points on 11 shots, left the building without addressing the media.

In a bump-and-grind game, Malone required postgame X-rays on his right hand (they were negative) and had another scare with the right knee, whose torn ligament forced him to miss nearly half the season. After falling hard in the third quarter, he played on and finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds, and the Lakers had just enough at the end against the determined Jazz.

“They have a system, and they stick to it and they play hard,” Bryant observed.

The Lakers’ system, or Coach Phil Jackson’s insistence upon it, or the players’ belief in it -- something -- appears optional at times. In those moments of distraction, teams such as the Jazz -- marginally playoff-worthy and on the floor for the second time in two nights -- play to the level of the Laker superstars.

On Sunday, Jackson thought Raja Bell’s forceful defensive confrontation of Bryant was designed to lure Bryant out of the Laker offense and into a solo game. In the second half, Bryant took 15 shots and no other Laker took more than five. Along the way, the Laker lead grew to 69-53, but was followed seven minutes later by a Jazz lead, at 79-77. Bell, who scored 26 points, 20 in the second half, led the charge.

“Well, it was tough for him,” Jackson said of Bryant. “That was a matchup where they just bumped and forced him into activation. One of the methods about guarding Kobe is to challenge him all the time so he tries to go one-on-one, so he’s not a playmaker. He doesn’t get into the team offense. But he takes the challenge and tries to beat guys. Then you have to hope the referees don’t stick him on the foul line all the time. The challenges, he was successful not as often as he would have liked to have been.... We were trying to convince him about, you know, drawing the defense and moving the ball.”

Jackson appeared content to let the game go, to let Bryant off the hook.

“We’ll move on,” he said. “We won’t get mired in it.”

The public comments from the rest of the locker room remained positive or general, Malone pointing out, “Whenever we move the basketball and do the things we’re capable of doing, we’re fun to watch. When we don’t move the basketball, we are an average team. But down the stretch we did things to win.”

Afterward, Malone iced his knees and hand. He could not recall how his hand was injured, but across the locker room Rick Fox peeled back his lower lip. The teeth marks there matched the ones on Malone’s hand.

“It really hurt,” Fox said.

The good news, Malone said: “After I hurt the hand, I forgot about my knee.”

On his way off the floor, Malone shook the hand of Jerry Sloan, the only professional coach he had before Jackson.

“It was somewhat bittersweet,” he said of the victory.

Sloan said he appreciated Malone, but was typically stern.

“It’s not strange,” he said of coaching against Malone. “My job stays the same.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Pacific Division Race

Race for first place in the division with games remaining home and away:

*--* Team Won Lost GB Home Away 1. Sacramento 52 21 -- 3 6 2. LAKERS 50 23 2 6 3

*--*

HEAD TO HEAD