Lakers, Shaq Attack Supersonics

Any psychological advantage the Los Angeles Lakers might have gained over the Seattle SuperSonics was completely lost on Shaquille O'Neal.

"I failed psychology in high school and college and I failed it on purpose because I don't believe in psychology," O'Neal said Friday night after the Lakers avoided a four-game season sweep with a 93-80 victory. "I don't believe in the Pavlov theory."

O'Neal was bad at the free throw line, going 4-for-15, but he finished with 24 points and 16 rebounds to lead the Lakers to their seventh straight home victory.

Rick Fox added 18 points for the Lakers, who went a season-high 28 games over .500 with their eighth victory in nine games and snapped Seattle's five-game winning streak despite committing 22 turnovers.

"We didn't want to get swept by this team because we always play this team pretty well, but they've gotten the best of us this year," O'Neal said. "We made mistakes in the last couple of minutes in those games, but tonight we just played good solid basketball."

Detlef Schrempf scored 17 points for the Sonics, whose only sweep of the Lakers was in 1993-94 when they played five times. Vin Baker, Seattle's leading scorer this season, fouled out with 4:52 remaining and finished with eight points in 31 minutes as Seattle lost for only the second time in 21 games against Pacific Division opponents.

The Lakers matched their best defensive effort of the season while trimming Seattle's division lead to three games.

"Obviously, they wanted to come out and not be swept and at the same time gain some more ground and make a run on us," Baker said. "It was an extremely big game for us, too, but we didn't come out and take care of business offensively."

The sellout crowd of 17,505 received a scare with the game barely two minutes old, as Eddie Jones went down hard in front of the Seattle bench and didn't move for a couple of anxious minutes. Jim McIlvaine set a moving pick for Hersey Hawkins and got Jones flush on the right thigh with his left knee, but Jones was back on the court following a timeout.

"It was murder, man," Jones said. "I couldn't do anything but grab my leg and hopefully try to walk it off, which I did. It scared me at first because I thought it was my knee. When you get a contusion, especially in that spot, it also bothers your knee."

O'Neal was angry about the pick when it happened, but decided that doing something about it would jeopardize the Lakers' chances of winning.

"It was a dirty pick. They've been getting away with that stuff all year, but we didn't back down from them," O'Neal said. "Eddie kept his composure, but if that pick would have been on me, I probably wouldn't have kept my composure.

"Ithis was early in the season, I really wouldn't mind running up to one of those players and punching him in the face," O'Neal added. "But it's almost the end of the season, so you have to be smart and stay in the game."

Less than four minutes later, Schrempf and Fox has words and coincidental technical fouls after Fox fouled Schrempf near the Seattle basket. The animosity was a carryover from the third quarter of last Monday's game in Seattle, when Robert Horry threw his hip out and knocked Gary Payton to the floor after Payton threw three elbows at Horry on the previous possession.

"We knew coming in that it was going to be a physical game," Jones said. "Every time you go through the lane, those guys put an elbow on you or something. But we had to forget about that and just play basketball."

Forward Elden Campbell, held scoreless over his first 12 minutes, ended the third quarter by intercepting a pass by Greg Anthony and hitting nothing but net with a desperation 32-foot buzzer-beater for his only points of the game.

Campbell's third career 3-pointer and second in the regular season gave the Lakers a 66-54 lead, after Seattle had sliced a 16-point third-quarter deficit to seven.

The Lakers built their biggest lead of the game to 73-55 on O'Neal's layup, two free throws by Kobe Bryant and a three-point play by Nick Van Exel with 10:25 to play.

The Sonics got as close as 82-74 with 3:40 remaining on a three-pointer and hook shoot 51 seconds apart by Sam Perkins, but the Lakers responded with a game-ending 11-6 run.

Notes: The Sonics did not go to the foul line until Anthony made one of two with 5:34 left in the second quarter. ... Bryant, who played 14 scoreless minutes and got off only one shot on Monday night at Seattle, had 16 points in 18 minutes. The 19-year-old All-Star guard was 13-35 over 106 minutes in the four games against Seattle, scoring 49 points. ... Seattle is 13-4 against teams with a winning percentage of at least .650. The Lakers' record against those teams is 12-6. ... Jerome Kersey served his one-game suspension without pay for fighting with Lamond Murray of the Clippers on Wednesday night. Kersey also was fined $7,500 by the NBA, which handed Murray the same punnishment.

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