A Floor Burn Lights a Fire

It was the dumbest play of the day.

It was the best play of the day.

Early in the first quarter Sunday, with only a couple of gasps left on the shot clock and the San Antonio Spurs fumbling the ball at midcourt, Shaquille O’Neal raced out from his spot underneath the basket.

Yeah, raced.

He then dived to the floor under San Antonio’s Hedo Turkoglu while fighting for possession.

Yeah, dived.

O’Neal was called for a silly, unnecessary foul about two miles from the paint, a mistake that would have sent a lesser figure to the bench.

But this one brought a roaring Staples Center crowd to its feet.

“It breathed life into the whole building,” said Karl Malone, and did it ever.

A town in need of an action hero had rediscovered one. A roster in need of a leader had confirmed one. A postseason in need of a moment had found one.

So what if the defining play of the Lakers’ 105-81 rout of the Spurs in Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals was a blooper?

The blooper contained a burned knee, a scraped elbow and a pool of sweat, all of which have been scarcer than humility on a team that is a tad more likable today after narrowing the Spurs’ series lead to two games to one.

Said Coach Phil Jackson: “It wasn’t the smartest play.”

Countered O’Neal: “I thought it was a smart play.”

You say tom-ay-to can, I say tom-ah-to can; the Lakers walked into the ring Sunday as a wobbling stiff, walked out with the Spurs’ aura in a spit bucket, and it began and ended with O’Neal.

“He was incredible,” said Jackson, something on which everyone agreed.

He scored 28 points, more than Tim Duncan and Tony Parker combined.

He blocked eight shots, more than the game’s other 23 players combined.

He had 15 rebounds, two more than Duncan, and five assists, which equaled Parker, and stop me if you’ve heard this before.

For as much as Kobe Bryant has saved them this season, for the Lakers to win the most difficult series of the spring, the first touch and last option must belong to O’Neal.

“You have to believe in something and you have to stick with it,” Malone said. “Even if it’s not doing well, you have to keep going to it.”

During their three championships in this era, the Lakers understood this, climbing on O’Neal at the worst times during the postseason, allowing him to carry them through the thick stuff.

In each of the Lakers’ three title-clinching games -- and in 12 of 15 NBA Finals games -- he has been their leading scorer.

Maybe he has become too slow. Maybe he’s playing too heavy. Maybe it’s foolish to think they can win with retro bullying and throwback swagger.

But as Sunday showed, for the next week at least, maybe the Lakers don’t have a choice.

“My teammates were looking for me very, very well,” O’Neal said. “I urge them to look for me the rest of the series.”

While this might not be digested very easily in Kobe Nation -- did you hear fans chanting “Kobe” and not “Shaq” at the end of Sunday’s game? -- O’Neal is right.

If this clammy team has a pulse, it’s him. If most of the feuding locker room can agree on something, it’s him.

When he runs, they jump. When he hustles, they follow.

And when he touches the ball early and often, as he did Sunday when he was five for six with six rebounds in the first quarter?

Then he is inspired enough to play defense, happy enough to work the ball to teammates, and involved enough to once again be the one guy no NBA team can stop.

It’s funny, but when O’Neal is the star, it seems as if everybody is the star, with the Lakers recording an amazing 29 assists on 37 field goals Sunday, with four players in double figures.

“I think if you have a guy with my ability, you have to use his unselfishness,” O’Neal said. “You have to make the defenses collapse. We’ve been doing this my whole career.”

And when he plays defense, well, Duncan and Rasho Nesterovic combined to go four for 18 with only two free throws between them, and everyone was watching.

“Something like that rubs off on other players,” said Malone.

O’Neal said the inspiration for this contagiousness came not only from the two-games-to-none deficit, but from a certain Sarge.

“My father told me he was very upset with my play,” said O’Neal, which means he and Bryant now share something in common.

Then, he said, he heard from his mother. “She told me to play hard,” he said.

Then, for the first time this postseason, Lucille Harrison showed up at courtside, celebrating Mother’s Day by watching her son eat the Spurs’ interior defense for brunch.

Did we say he had only two missed shots? That he began the game by blocking Tony Parker’s first shot, and ended it with a dunk and a stare into the Staples Center camera, projecting his giant glare on the even-bigger scoreboard?

Of course, if the Lakers had lost this game, or lose this series, the 19,000 will be glaring back.

For as much as O’Neal should receive the credit if the Lakers can pull off this comeback, he will get just as much blame if they don’t, and he knows it.

“If this thing doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to go, it’s going to be my fault,” he said. “I won’t run from that.”

He won’t have a chance. If the Lakers lose, he will be instantly surrounded by speculation that Jerry Buss is handing the team to Bryant, which could mean a sudden end to the Laker career of O’Neal.

He may not just be playing for a championship, he may be playing for an address, and that headfirst slide is a plain enough declaration that he knows it.

“We have to forget all the talk, we have to forget what’s going to happen next year, we have to do now ... we have to be in the now,” said O’Neal, shortly after guaranteeing at least one more day of it.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.